


all the words that went uncharted

by Alcheminx



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Fluff and Angst, Implied Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-26 04:35:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7560322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcheminx/pseuds/Alcheminx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a seemingly simple question poised to him as an assignment in the first grade that sends Kuroo's otherwise ordinary life into a downwards spiral. He does not think much of it at first, another easy task to complete before the end of the school day, but as his eyes take in the question in front of him he realizes that it might just be the first question he doesn't have an answer to. </p><p>"What do you treasure?" It asks, and it is only when, years later when he is at the risk of losing the most important thing in his life, that he realizes that his answer might just have been in front of him all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a map

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earlgrey_milktea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgrey_milktea/gifts).



> EGMT -  
> I had so much fun writing this for you, and I'm so happy that your request was the one that I was able to be assigned to! I can tell that we both have a lot in common when it comes to our love of KuroKen, and so I decided to mix several of your suggestions together and thus this kind of childhood, kind of future, kind of canon compliant mess of a story was born. I apologize in advance tremendously for the length, l'm really bad at getting carried away when I write, but regardless I hope that you like it and that it turned out to be something that you can enjoy! 
> 
> To everyone else who may stumble upon this fic: Thank you so much for your support, and I hope that it is something that you can come to enjoy, too. Happy reading!
> 
> (Note: This story talks often about season changes. To avoid any confusion, please note that it follows the traditional Japanese school year system. Term 1: April-July, Term 2: September-December.)

It is a sweltering beginning to his 6th spring when Kuroo’s world gets thrown off kilter.

It has no reason to be any day out of the ordinary, really. There is no drastic change in weather, no life changing encounter, no unlikely twist of the earth’s axis. To everyone else, it is the perfect mix of just another ordinary day.

For Kuroo, it starts that way too.

It is a funny concept to him, the prospect of school and all its newness. Even more so to his 6 year old mind, it is a baffling concept that with it he is expected to stay seated in one area, still and obedient, for a seemingly unimaginable amount of hours.

It is not that he hates learning. Not at all. In fact, if you really asked him, he would tell you that there were few things in the world that he loved more. He did everything that he did because he was thirsty for knowledge. Curiosity had made a home in his veins before he even had a name for the feeling he felt stirring there. When it came to learning about the world laid out before him, he was insatiable.

It was the restraint that came with school that he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around. He already knew how to learn, had been doing it for years already. He did not need to be confined to one place, to be trapped behind the metal of a desk to uncover the world. He had spent his entire lifetime so far scavenging through fields, trekking across rivers, climbing the highest trees he could find. He felt that he had learned more trying to keep a wriggling frog captured in his grasp or following a wild rabbit into the thick of the forest than he ever had seated here.

It was true that there were new things to learn, things like numbers and letters and dates that he had never come across in his outdoor discoveries, but even the newness of them didn’t seem like a fair trade in exchange for this confinement.

He was doing well, incredibly so, because Kuroo did not do anything without doing it _well_ , but even so it was not enough for him. He could doze off for the entirety of a lesson, but if you slapped a math sheet down in front of him he’d still have no problem completing it before the rest of his classmates. He was good at what he did, but he never thought more of it. Knowing he was good at it didn’t matter to him, not as long as it didn’t make him happy.

If there was anyone out there who would have been thankful for their world being thrown off kilter, it was surely Kuroo.

And he was. Eventually.

It is a sweltering beginning to his 6th spring, watching the sky outside the classroom window melt into the start of a new day when he gets asked the question that, for once, he doesn’t have the answer to.

“Tetsuro,” Comes a voice, just another frequency in all the static he is used to tuning out, and then he is torn away from the sight of the shifting morning light with the slap of palm against his desk.

He jumps, once, surprised at even himself for being startled when usually his instincts are so sharp, and when he casts his gaze upwards he is met with nothing but the cold stony stare of his teacher’s eyes.

He knows this look, has had the misfortune of it being cast in his direction more than once. He has memorized the beginnings of crow’s feet clawing their way around the edges of his teachers eyes, has the unamused twist of her mouth formatted to memory.

 _“Problem child”_ she had deemed him, more than once in a desperate conversation to his mother over a crackling phone line, and everything in her expression now is a confirmation of that thought. The phone calls had never gone well. His mother had always preferred the term “ _curious_ ” instead. His father swallowed his opinion down behind a too-hot cup of morning coffee. Kuroo kept slapping bandaid after bandaid on his bruised and bloody adventuring knees. The world kept turning on its axis.

He knows this exchange, this scenario. It is a game that he has played enough to get good at. It is not a game he expects to suddenly change all of its rules.

Maybe he is naïve for thinking so, but in the moment, it is all that he really knows.

He leans back in his seat, like clockwork, like a dance that’s been morphed into pure instinct, and splits his mouth open into the widest, most genuine smile he can manage. There is a gap between his two front teeth, a missing pocket where a canine use to be before he knocked it out on the playground, and he knows it does nothing but add to his strategy. _Charming,_ his mother had called it. He is not afraid to play it up.

“Hello,” He greets back, casual like she is just another school friend, and suddenly the stony grey of her eyes turn to charcoal.

She is not a bad person, not by any means, and Kuroo feels bad for momentarily thinking her to be one. He is sure that, underneath it all, she really does care. He doubts that she would be here, surrounded by snotty nosed six year olds with no will to learn and every will to make a ruckus, if she truly didn’t want to be. It is not an idea that he can seem to wrap his head around, anyhow. Respect does not always equate to understanding.

He knows that he is insatiable, impossible, a frustration that makes you want to pull your hair out. It doesn’t make him want to start being any less of himself than he is.

There is a flash of anger apparent in the dark of her eyes, a curling flame that flickers with its last bout of life, and then she is closing them and letting it die out with a pent up sigh.

“The classroom is in front of you. Not outside.” She reiterates, another statement that has become a part of their everyday exchange. “Please make an effort to concentrate on it for once.”

It has no spark with the way it filters past her lips, chapped beneath their coat of too-bright lipstick, and then she is placing a worksheet down in front of him and shuffling her way past to her next victim.

She smells like potpourri and linen, and Kuroo wrinkles up his nose despite himself as her movement sends a barrel of scent towards him. It reminds him of stuffy summers stuck in the sweltering confinements of his bedroom because it is too late to explore, of having to spend hours in the dusty basement of his grandmothers when his parents had to work late. Everything about it screams _confinement_ to him and he wonders, faintly, if his teacher ever really did smile to deserve those beginnings of crow’s feet around her eyes.

It is an important question to him, in the moment, but his curiosity is quickly stubbed out when he feels a trickle of sweat beginning to bead down the contour of his neck. He does not need to be reminded of sweltering summers when it is already a sweltering spring. He does not need to think about confinement when the clock tells him he only has an hour left of it, only an hour more until he is free to go grasp the falling leaves outside in his very own hands instead of staring longingly at them from his window seat.

His interest falls back onto the worksheet in front of him, freshly printed and warm beneath his dirty fingertips, and as he turns it over and lets his eyes settle onto the ink in front of him he is surprised to feel his stomach turn with, for once, uncertainty.

There is only one question, bold and taunting against the starkness of the white paper before him, and for once in his entire life it is not a question he knows the answer to.

 _What do you treasure?_ It asks, and the axis stops spinning.

* * *

 

There is the patter of ball against brick, the scrape of shoe against pavement, and then –

“ _Hah?_ ” Bokuto asks, previously bouncing volleyball now stationed firmly in his grip, and Kuroo watches his mouth gawk into confusion.

It is a Saturday evening, the both of them huddled into the small space of Kuroo’s backyard, and Kuroo can just make out the glint of amber in his eyes in the fading sunset.

It is not often they get to see each other, living so far away and meeting by chance at a Tokyo intramurals camp the summer before, and so if he’s honest Kuroo is happy to be struggling to make out his expression in the darkness at all. Bokuto had been loud and obnoxious and more adventurous and on the move than even Kuroo himself. It was no wonder that they had instantly become friends.

It was no wonder that Kuroo was already bombarding him with life altering questions not even halfway into their weekend together, either.

Kuroo was popular. Friends were easy. Best friends were not.

There were some things that only those with the best friend label could be subjected to.

“What do you mean, _hah_? It’s not that crazy of a question, is it?” Kuroo huffs, fed up with waiting for Bokuto to elaborate on something he clearly had no intention of elaborating on. He crosses his arms, serious, wanting to let Bokuto know he’s all business, and directs a steely glance towards him again. “ _What do you treasure_?”

The volleyball patters back onto the ground again as Bokuto lets it go in favor of scratching his head. His hair is as dark as Kuroo’s own and sticking up haphazardly in the moonlight, an after effect of too many sweaty volleyball games and wrestling matches. The craziness of it suits him, somehow.

“I don’t get the question.” He mutters, voice wavering from confusion to dejection. “ _Treasure_? You mean what do I _like_? I like a lotta’ things.”

The stray volleyball rolls down the slope of pavement and bumps against Kuroo’s sneaker lightly. He does not let his gaze waver from the contorting expression on Bokuto’s chubby face.

“Like what?” He prompts.

“Ughhh! I dunno’ Tetsu!” Bokuto groans, slapping a dirty and popsicle stained palm over top his face. “Why do ya’ always gotta be so serious all the time?”

“I’m not! It’s just a _question_.”

Bokuto lets his hand fall, effortless, away from his face and an exasperated huff slips past his lips to match. “Fine.” He murmurs, stalking his way back towards Kuroo and scooping the abandoned volleyball at his feet back up.

Kuroo has to angle his gaze downwards, their unmatched height making itself apparent in their close vicinity, and by the time he does Bokuto is all energy and excitement again.

“Volleyball!” He begins, practically shouting it with the way he holds the grass and dirt stained ball above his head like it’s a trophy. “I love volleyball! And…and mmm…” He stops for a moment, eyebrows furrowed like he didn’t expect to have to think of anything more, and then his eyes light up again as he practically jumps in the air. “And popsicles! Popsicles are awesome! Especially those cherry ones your mom gave us earlier, do you know she’s the best, Tetsu? ‘Cause she’s totally the best. My mom’s the best too! I love her, too! And umm…uh…owls! Owls are so cool! Have you ever really seen an owl, Tetsu? Whenever we watch the Discovery Channel they’re so cool! They’re just all _bam_! And _wah_! And then they catch those mice like they’re nothing and-“

Bokuto is cut short, his insistent enthusiasm forced into insistent mumbling, with the slap of Kuroo’s palm over his mouth.

“Okay!” He practically shrieks, and Bokuto’s mumbling finally comes to a standstill underneath his hand before he moves it away. “Okay. I get it, ‘Bo. You love a lot of stuff.”

“Um.” Bokuto mumbles, scratching at his temple. “Sorry? Was that not what you wanted?”

“Ah – no…I just…” Kuroo begins, but just as quickly deflates. Was it what he wanted? Bokuto had answered exactly what he had asked of him, hadn’t he? Why did he feel so disappointed by the answer?

Something in Bokuto’s expression changes, a reflection of Kuroo’s own disappointment, and suddenly the gleam of amber in his eyes is gone as he casts a shameful gaze towards the pavement. “Sorry, bro.” He pouts, and Kuroo feels his heart clench with the apology.

He is used to Bokuto, used to all his drastic mood swings and his unnecessary emotional roller-coasters, but he doesn’t ever want to be the cause of them. Not by choice.

“Agh!” He groans, throwing his arms up in defeat and slumping onto the pavement in front of him. Why was he even still thinking about this stupid question? It had been more than a week ago, it shouldn’t still be on his mind.

But it _was_.

It was, because the fact of the matter was, Kuroo had left that worksheet blank. He had left that classroom, for once in his entire life, without completing something he had set out to do. He wasn’t going to be content until he had a proper answer, until he had finished the task given to him with all that he had.

Bokuto takes a seat beside him wordlessly, bumping bandaged elbows in his clumsiness, and Kuroo suddenly feels overwhelmingly thankful for his friendship.

“I’m not mad at you. Sorry if I made you feel that way.” He clarifies, and he can instantly feel Bokuto perk up at his side at the statement.

“It’s ‘kay.” Bokuto murmurs back, a softer octave than Kuroo is ever used to hearing him use. He picks at a healing scab on his kneecap for a few moments before breaking the silence.

“A couple days ago, one of our assignments in school was to answer that question, but I couldn’t answer it.” He admits.

“Why not? You love plenty of things, don’t ‘cha?” Bokuto questions, and Kuroo can practically hear the confused twist of his mouth in his words. “What about volleyball?”

“I do love volleyball.” Kuroo sighs. “But...that’s the thing, ‘Bo, I love it. I don’t _treasure_ it. I love it. I feel like that’s supposed to mean something more, y’know?”

“Hm. Like what?”

Kuroo’s eyebrows furrow on instinct, the question almost too big for his ever growing 6 year old mind, but it is a question he knows that even he wants to know the answer to. He is too young to be worried about such life altering things, he knows this, but even knowing does not stop him from his worrying.

“Like…to treasure something is to…value it above everything else, you know? It isn’t just something that makes you happy, or that you’re good at, or that you love. It’s something that means the entire world to you, something that you wouldn’t ever want to lose. I think, maybe, that it’s something that you’d give your life up for to protect?”

“Huh.” Bokuto says. “That’s a pretty big deal.”

Kuroo nods. “That’s what I thought, too. That’s why I couldn’t understand why everyone had such an easy time answering it. Shouldn’t it mean a lot more than that?”

Bokuto lets out a huff at his side and then he’s lightly tapping his fist against Kuroo’s shoulder, making him lose his balance on the pavement for a moment. “Maybe everybody else didn’t think about it the same way you did, Tetsu. You’re always thinkin’ too much.” He shrugs.

Kuroo steadies himself, palm scraping against concrete, before jutting out his lip. “Maybe.” He agrees.

“What did everyone else write?”

“Mmm.” Kuroo starts, squinting up at the blackness above them. He recalls the scribbles of almost unidentifiable kanji hung up around their classroom immediately, but what they said he can hardly remember. The few he had taken the time to read had all seemed so meaningless to him. _Baseball. Meat buns. Cartoons._ “The usual stuff.” He decides.

“Why don’t cha’ just write somethin’?” Bokuto shrugs, words slightly muffled with the way he’s busying his mouth with biting on a stray hangnail. “It doesn’t matter if ya’ mean it. Just get it over with.”

Kuroo throws him an attempt at a furious glance before resting his chin atop his folded up knee. “Don’t say that, ‘Bo.” He warns. “It feels dishonest.”

“Okay, okay.” Bokuto levels, waving his free hand in surrender. “If I were you, though, I’d just write somethin’ really cool. Somethin’ to make all the other kids jealous. Like…” He hums, squinting his eyes in concentration. “Like _Batman_!”

“Batman?” Kuroo echoes, disbelief sneaking its way into his words.

“Yeah!” Bokuto exclaims, leaping back up to his feet in all his excitement and striking a poor attempt at a heroic pose before Kuroo. “ _Batman_! Just think about it! He’s super cool, and strong, and all mysterious and stuff! If you were going to treasure anything, it should surely be him!”

“Oh _please_.” Kuroo drones, something that he had learned from his mother directly, and makes a show of rolling his eyes. “If I were going to pick anything, it’d _have_ to be Superman. He’s way cooler.”

“What?!” Bokuto shrieks, betrayal taking apparent form on his face. “You’ve gotta’ be kidding me! What’s he got goin’ for him? Kryptonite and bein’ a nice guy? Lame!” He sticks out his tongue for effect, blowing it, and several unwelcome sprinkles of spit, into Kuroo’s face.

It means war.

Kuroo leaps up to his feet, suddenly thankful for his advantage in height, and crowds into Bokuto’s space with a wicked grin. “Its way better than being a sad rich boy, c’mon, ‘Bo, what kind of lame excuse for a superhero is that?”

“His parents died, dude!” Bokuto gasps, and Kuroo has to hold back a laugh at how genuine his distress is.

“Yeah? Well, Superman-“ He begins, always ready for an argument, but then he is suddenly cut off by the shrill cry of his mother from the doorway.

“Tetsuro! Kotaro! I’ve been calling you both for 10 minutes straight! Get in here for dinner already, it’s getting cold!” She yells, and then the patio door slams shut behind her.

The in-sync grumbling of their stomachs break all memory of a debate, and Bokuto and Kuroo exchange a quiet look of guilt, glancing towards their place on the pavement and back to the house, before their faces split into an identical wicked smile.

“Race ya’ there!” Bokuto screams, taking off without warning, and Kuroo is racing after him before he even has a chance to consider denying the challenge.

* * *

 

It is an evening like any other, empty dinner bowls pushed to the middle of the table and the acrylic of his mother’s nails tapping against illuminated phone screen, when he is finally forced to confront his troubles.

There is the weight of a good meal sitting comfortably at the bottom of Kuroo’s stomach, a stray piece of rice forgotten and sticking to the plush of his cheek. It is not rare for his family to fall into silences after a dinner, not when everyone is suddenly out of steam and occupied with their own business. It is not rare for Kuroo to be bored out of his mind with the quiet of it, either.

His mother busy with her work emails, his father concentrated on the evening paper, this time Kuroo has found entertainment in a brightly coloured marble he had found stuffed underneath the couch cushions just the night before.

It has been a pattern for the past ten minutes, rolling back and forth along the slanting pine of the dinner table, reflecting a spectra of amber and charcoal. Even Kuroo is surprised the rhythmic movement of it has not drawn his parents insane yet.

It is comforting to him, somehow. A lull to distract him from the repeating mantra of his head for once. He can’t bring himself to stop thinking back to Bokuto and their conversation.

When he had left, been shuffled back to the subway station to meet back up with his parents, he hadn’t seemed to forget about it either. Instead of a goodbye handshake, instead of a farewell laced with childlike banter, this time his leaving words had been encouragement.

A slap on the shoulder, a too-wide smile, and a well wish:

_“Hope you find your treasure soon, Tetsu!”_

Kuroo’s eyebrows furrow despite himself at the memory, conflicted, and he goes back to running the pads of his fingertips over the smooth surface of the marble before letting it go.

When he over calculates, when he flicks it just a little too far and it bounces, hard, against his father’s elbow, he knows that that’s the end of it.

“Tetsuro.” He warns, the dark copper of his eyes tossing a warning glance behind a wiry frame of glasses, and Kuroo has the sense to flash him an attempt at an apologetic grimace as he stills the marble underneath his palm.

When he allows himself to think about it, there is little of himself that he sees reflected in the unimpressed glance of his father. His eyes too dark, his hair too tame, his smile too focused. Sometimes he has trouble even accepting that they’re related.

It stills the apology in his mouth for a moment, caught up in a moment of disbelief, but when his mother clears her throat across from him, lowers her phone away from her face and shoots him a predatory smile, he sees nothing but himself there.

Their similarities threaten to send a shiver down his spine.

He knows he has made a mistake the minute their eyes meet – hers suddenly full of intent, his own no doubt a silent plea. His father speaking his name sparks an idea in her, and as she opens her mouth Kuroo mentally prepares himself for impact.

“ _Ah_ , that reminds me. Your school called this afternoon, Tetsu.”

“Did they?” He says, suddenly far too interested in the near empty bowl in front of him. He makes a show of scraping the few leftover pieces of rice onto his chopsticks and towards his mouth with vigor.

His father suddenly becomes increasingly interested in the newspaper in front of him.

Kuroo’s school calling is not new.

“Mhmmmm.” She hums, leaning forward and resting her chin atop a manicured hand. “It was your sweet little Sensei again, what was her name? Sasaki-san?”

Kuroo knows damn well she knows exactly what her name is.

“Yes.” He deadpans anyway. He also knows damn well not to mess with his mother, especially not when he knows she already has a plan hatching underneath her sleeve.

“She told me something interesting.”

Kuroo already knows what is coming. He tightens his grip around the marble trapped beneath his palm. His father shifts slightly in his seat beside him.

“She told me that you failed your first assignment.” She finishes, releasing the final blow and raising a single eyebrow in feigned shock.

There is not even the slightest hint of disappointment gracing her face, not even the smallest glimpse of anger flashing in the amber of her eyes, but it does nothing to stop Kuroo’s heart from dropping down into his stomach.

It is weird, hearing the words aloud. It is not as though it is a surprise, it is not as though it is something he hadn’t seen coming. In the grand scheme of things it was something minuscule, nothing life altering or life destroying or even, really, a major setback. It shouldn’t have mattered, and his mother’s nonchalance confirmed exactly that, but hearing it, giving it a name, that was what Kuroo was not ready for.

Fail. Failed. _Failure_.

It was not a word he ever expected to have to use to describe himself.

His father lowers his newspaper and finally has the sense to seem interested.

“I-“ He begins, his words escaping in an exasperated breath, but all chance at an explanation is quickly cut off by the muffled sound of his mother’s laughter.

“It’s fine! Sweetheart, _its fine_.” She squeaks out, still trying to quiet her amusement behind the pale of her wrist.

Kuroo can imagine how ridiculous he looks. His mouth agape, his stammering heartbeat, the bead of sweat starting to collect at his temple. He is not afraid of what his parents have to say, knows that he is gifted to have a more than understanding family. He is disappointed with himself, and frustrated for feeling disappointed over something so silly. He does not know how to translate that into words.

Maybe Bokuto was right after all. Maybe he is far too serious for his own good.

“So what was it?” She asks, the edges of her eyes crinkling in interest. Unlike his teacher, Kuroo knows well enough that she has earned every beginning of the crow’s feet blooming there. “English? Math? Science? God, no, it definitely couldn’t have been science. Honestly, I’m kind of glad. It’s just good to know that we’re related after all.”

When she laughs again, it is hearty and meaningful, and Kuroo feels the gnawing worry in his stomach diminish along with it.

“It was nothing, really.” He mutters. “A question about treasuring that I couldn’t seem to find the answer to.”

He knows that his nonchalance is useless against his mother. She can read him like he is a book that she had written herself.

It does not stop him from trying though.

Something in her expression changes, just a glimmer of worry before she is blinking it away under a heavy coat of mascara, but Kuroo is quick enough to catch it.

She is all optimistic, a bright outlook that never runs out of light, and sometimes he forgets that there is more to her than that.

She says that she is happy to know that they are the same after all. Capable of making mistakes. Capable of failing.

It is a joke that she only allows to be funny until she recognizes what it means to Kuroo.

“Treasuring?” She says, a question that Kuroo already knows she doesn’t really want the answer to, and this time her tone is nothing close to predatory.

How such a strong woman can appear so soft never fails to baffle Kuroo.

His mother is silent, the red plush of her lips caught between her teeth in concentration, and Kuroo makes the decision to answer the empty question anyway. “It’s not the same as loving something.” He admits.

“No.” She replies. “It’s not, is it?”

The legs of the dinner table squeak, loud and complaining, as his father rises suddenly beside him. There is an exchange of glances, a silent conversation that passes between him and his mother that Kuroo does not quite catch, and then he is giving Kuroo a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before he busies himself with tidying the kitchen.

The palm of his hand is rough and calloused, his wedding ring catching and reflecting the overhead chandelier, and when Kuroo turns his attention back to his mother he is not surprised to find her already waiting.

“What do you treasure?” He dares to ask, and the gentleness that forms on his mother’s face has goosebumps rising on the pale of his arms instantly.

She does not hesitate at all when she opens her mouth and says:

“ _You._ ”

Kuroo does not try to mask the surprise on his face when he realizes all at once that he hadn’t considered the prospect of a treasure being a _person_.

* * *

 

It is nearly winter when he catches the first glimpse of it.

It comes to him when he is nothing more than the plush of his cheek squashed up against the glass frame of his front window and the stubby form of his fingers leaving foggy handprints against its surface. The excited puff of his own breath ghosting up around him and obscuring his view is doing nothing to help his situation, but even so he can’t seem to tear his eyes away.

There is a lot, in the moment, that he could be doing instead. Working on his daily homework, studying for an upcoming test, trying to communicate with Bokuto over the walkie talkies that never quite worked nor had a chance of working at all with such a vast distance between them.

There is a lot he could be doing, but nothing that could capture his attention in quite the same way as the snow covered moving truck down the street currently was.

He has been enraptured by it all day, hunched up against the unfair glass pane between them and cursing the distance, and yet he has made no progress, no new discoveries, no more knowledge than the fact that his leg is starting to cramp underneath him.

In the morning when his mother had first passed by, had the chance to register the overeager expression plastered on his face, she had crushed all of his hopes and dreams with one, monotone sentence.

“ _Not yet_.”

He understood her reasoning. The best he could, anyhow. Kuroo’s eagerness was not something that he had an easy time containing. If it were up to him, he’d been across the street at sunrise this morning trying to explore the very contents of said truck.

He understood, too, how maybe that could have been a little overwhelming for the people involved.

And so he sat.

And _sat_.

 _And sat_.

And sat until his leg cramps so bad he starts to genuinely worry for its safety and has to, reluctantly, tear himself away from his lookout spot.

“I heard last week that we’d have someone new moving in.” His mother says, and the sound of her voice behind him suddenly makes him jump.

When he angles himself around to give her a proper glare, she already has a satisfactory smirk forming on her face.

Her hands are busy with dish towel and bowl, absentmindedly drying the remaining water droplets cascading down the side of it, and Kuroo is quick to pad after her as she returns to the kitchen.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” He grumbles.

“Can you blame me?” She laughs, and Kuroo shakes out the remaining tingling sensation in his leg as if on cue.

“You’re cruel.” He pouts, and the amused curve of his mother’s mouth only grows.

“Well,” She hums, placing the dish back into its spot in a nearby cupboard and dusting her hand off on the plush of her thigh. “That’s a shame, because I was just going to suggest that it’s about time you and I go on over there and introduce ourselves.”

Kuroo nearly chokes on his spit at her words.

“I take it back, I take it back! C’mon! _C’mon_! Let’s go!” He yelps, grabbing hold of whatever fistful of fabric he can at his height and giving his mom a swift tug by the shirt towards the doorway.

She laughs again, high and musical, but there is no resisting as she lets herself be guided towards the exit, and Kuroo can’t help but feel a stirring of excitement in his veins.

It is not a far walk, just merely a small stretch of road to get to the house next door, but for Kuroo it feels like it stretches on forever.

He is fortunate enough to live in a quiet neighborhood, a traditional style house away from the busy city life apartments where Bokuto lives, but now he wishes it was just another complex – that the distance was just a mere hallway between destinations.

When they finally arrive, feet cold from the snow within the confines of their boots, Kuroo allows his mother to do the knocking to prevent himself from breaking down the entire door with all his build up anxiety.

Everything feels like it is operating in slow motion, the seconds between the knock of his mother’s fist and the waiting dragging on forever, and as she reaches down to ruffle a reassuring hand through the coarse mess of Kuroo’s hair, the door finally clicks open.

The woman who greets them is small in stature and so different from the one standing beside Kuroo. Her face is worn, like she has grown tired of everything around her already, and Kuroo is afraid she might break from merely being looked at for too long.

It makes his chest feel terribly empty, like there should be something more there than festering disappointment, and he can’t help himself when he angles his gaze past her in search for more.

The conversation above him between the tired woman and his mother is all background noise to him now, a small disconnected buzz at the back of his mind, but everything filters back into the foreground when he sees a flash of black and gold skitter past his vision.

It is far too fast for him to register, a blur of colour and then nothing, but then there is a bark of agitated voice above him and the colours come into focus all at once.

“ _Kenma_!” The woman snaps, and Kuroo watches as the sock clad feet of an impossibly tiny boy come grinding to a halt.

He looks terrified, an image made up of nothing but bright gold irises growing to the size of dinner plates and long strands of black hair casting a protective shadow across his face. His knees are wobbling, frail and pale underneath him, and all sound is lost to Kuroo’s ears again as the small boy takes a nervous breath and pads his way over to his mother’s side.

Every step looks as reluctant as the last, the closer he gets the more blood draining from the plush of his cheeks, and Kuroo’s hands ball into fists despite himself.

He always thought it strange the number of times he’d been baffled by how his mother looked so strong and remained so soft. It is not until now that he recognizes that looking a certain way means nothing. Not when a woman as frail and tired as the one across from him could manage to instill so much fear into a child with just a singular word.

The boy before him is barely in sight, the majority of him shaking and shielded behind his mother’s leg, and Kuroo does not need to angle his head upwards to know that her expression is anything short of irritated. It makes the beginnings of anger start to burn at the edges of his stomach.

“I’m Tetsuro.” He blurts, the words escaping him with vigor, and the conversation between his mother and the woman come to a grinding halt above him.

“ _Tetsu_ ,” His mother hisses, gritting the nickname out between her teeth and tapping him gently on the back of the head. She sounds embarrassed, but Kuroo can’t find the means in the moment to concentrate on feeling sorry for her. “ _Manners_.” She scolds.

“I’m Kuroo.” He corrects, reluctantly, and the boy ( _Kenma, was it?_ ) peeks out enough from behind his barrier to blink wildly at Kuroo.

He tries flashing a smile, his signature gap in its teeth doing its best to be charming, but it’s a lost cause as Kenma’s mother makes a tutting noise above him and Kenma recoils back into his hiding place like he’s been burned.

She tuts again, louder, the smack of her lip making Kuroo’s eyebrow dip down in annoyance, and then the boy is rushing out his words all at once.

“Kozume.” He whispers, his voice barely having a chance to be a noise at all when it’s muffled against the fabric of his mother’s jeans.

It is clear that his mother is not impressed, and even moreso when she kneels down to forcefully tear Kenma away from his hiding place.

Her hold on his wrist looks careless, two seemingly breakable people holding onto each other far too tight, and Kuroo is suddenly afraid he is going to have to watch them both shatter to pieces in front of him.

When she lets go there is barely a mark, but Kuroo does not miss the flash of fear that ghosts across Kenma’s expression when he is released.

He is out in the open now, no shield to cover him from the outside world and the curious stares of both Kuroo and his mother, and it is clear that he is hating every moment of it.

It is Kuroo’s first good look at him, his first chance to really take in the wide globes of topaz coloured iris and the shaggy curtain of dark hair - but it is impossible to appreciate any of it when it is outshined by the crumbling expression of his nervous face.

It is the first time Kuroo has ever looked at something, has ever looked at _someone_ , and for the word _beautiful_ to come to mind instantly.

It is as if the entire kaleidoscope of colour he had found hidden within that marble from months ago had come to life right in front of him – and yet he didn’t care about how beautiful of a person it had created when that person looked like they wanted to vanish into the very air in front of them. It seemed impossibly wrong to appreciate the beauty of something that didn’t even want to be looked at in the first place.

“Kozume Kenma.” The boy speaks again, his voice wavering on every syllable, and Kuroo can’t help but feel as though the entire thing sounds like a recording he had formatted to memory.

It catches him off guard, the routine that this boy has become, and as he finds himself opening his mouth, grasping at words, his mother speaks up for him.

“It’s nice to meet you both.” She smiles, and Kuroo can’t help but notice that every inch of it looks wrong. “We won’t keep you, I’m sure you both have a lot of unpacking to do, but Tetsuro and I both look forward to us being neighbours.”

There is more to her farewell, a longer exchange of words between her and the stranger in the doorway, but Kuroo makes a point to purposefully tune it out. He is not interested in either of their words, not keen on hearing his mother fake politeness through her teeth as she shoves a housewarming meal into the hands of this woman he has already come to dislike. He is even less interested to hear when a woman like her has to say back.

His interest is reserved, solely, for the danger zone of a boy in front of him.

He is not one to struggle with words, but now he cannot think of anything to say, cannot fathom that there is any sentence that he would be able to string together to stop the wobbling of his fearful knees.

He tries, desperately, to offer some sort of silent plea, some sort of silent promise with his stare, but the boy refuses to tear his gaze away from the floorboards beneath his feet.

The conversation above him falls into silence, the door in front of him creaks shut, and the image of ebony hair and tawny eyes vanishes all together.

He is not surprised when he feels something close to loss curling around his heart.

His mother is warm as she connects their fingers, leads him down the stony snow path and back towards the comforting glow of their home.

She is surprisingly silent, but so is Kuroo.

He does not need to question why.

“I think you ought to be friends with that boy.” She murmurs, and as Kuroo angles his head upwards, takes in the downcast twist of her mouth and the hollowness in her gaze, he does not have trouble understanding what she really means.

 _Take care of him_.

He does not need to be told twice.

* * *

 

Caring, as it turns out, can be an impossibly difficult task when it is not wanted.

He tries the simple way, an excited knock at his neighbour’s door bright and early the next morning, but all he is met with is the irritated expression of Kenma’s mother’s face and the phrase that begins to sound like a broken record when, after weeks, it’s the only answer his trying ever turns up.

 _“Kenma can’t come out today_.”

He feels useless, barely six years old and all out of options, and so the majority of his winter is spent wishing that he could be more.

There is school, and there is homework, and there are the few and far between conversations and visits from Bokuto to pass the time, but nothing quite passes it fast enough. Not when the worry and determination gnawing at the back of his mind only continues to grow the longer he is forced to ignore it.

The thought of failing another task was unforgivable. Kuroo wouldn’t allow it – he refused to let a sole mistake turn into an entire pattern. He refused to lose the determination and the fight that made him who he was just because the world wasn’t willing to cooperate.

He’d make it, if that was what he had to do.

It is an impossibly cold evening, Kuroo bundled up to his chin in his winter clothing, when the world decides to be on his side for once.

He is lobbing a volleyball against the trunk of a large oak tree situated on his front lawn, the vibration causing a flutter of snow to trickle down from its barren branches, when he catches the smallest blur of colour out of the corner of his eye.

He stops his game instantly, the gritty surface of the ball coming to a standstill in his glove-clad clutches, and as he angles his head upwards he just barely catches the flash of dark hair ducking out of view.

He can’t help the stirring of hope that begins to pool in his chest with the sight of it.

The window closest to this tree - this large, beautiful, blooming means of connection between his and his neighbour’s yard - without a doubt belongs to Kenma.

And Kenma, without a doubt, had just been watching him.

He does not need to think twice about what he’s doing before he is letting his volleyball tumble to the ground in front of him in favour of cupping his hands around the edges of his mouth.

He takes one breath, deep and shuddering in the chilly air, and pushes as much voice out of his lungs as he possibly can when he screams: “ _Kozume!_ ”

The reaction that follows is immediate, a yelp loud enough to be heard through the window pane between them as Kuroo witnesses a blur of colour tumble onto the floor.

He can’t help but momentarily feel bad for scaring him. It doesn’t stop a satisfactory smile from blooming on his face anyway.

There is a dead silence after the commotion that follows, drawn out and suffering, and Kuroo can’t bring himself to be surprised. It is not as though he was expecting anything more to follow – not from a boy like Kenma.

There was something familiar in his eyes when he had caught the smallest glimpse of them, something he had been told far too many times had made a home in his own, and Kuroo was smart enough to recognize it when he saw it.

It didn’t matter that he was hiding behind a glass pane, it wasn’t important that he was purposefully ignoring Kuroo’s yelling as though it had never happened in the first place. In the moment, in the smallest moment when he had caught sight of Kenma staring back at him, he had discovered something crucial.

Because the thing stirring there was nothing other than curiosity, and suddenly, Kuroo knew exactly what he had to do.

* * *

 

It becomes a game, every afternoon spent spiking his volleyball off the side of a crumbling tree trunk, and Kenma quickly learns how to play.

Kuroo can feel his eyes, insistent and curious boring into his backside with every spike, and he allows him a good dozen glances every time before he is yelling his name all over again and having him crash to the floor in embarrassment.

It continues like this, every day without fail, until the day that has Kuroo clambering over snowbanks to get to his usual spot changes everything.

There is the shout of Kenma’s name, desperate and teasing, and the loud crash of elbows and knees greeting wooden floor like always, and then –

“ _Hey_!” An angry voice squeaks out, and Kuroo blinks wildly, more than once just to be sure he’s not imagining it, at the sight of Kenma’s scrunched up face behind the opened window.

He knows that it is not meant to be a friendly greeting. His body decides to squeak out an equally nervous and excited “hi” in response anyway.

It only seems to make Kenma’s face furrow into deeper annoyance.

It is odd, in retrospect, for Kuroo to see his face morph into any expression other than fear. It makes him incredibly thankful for the annoyance even if it is not exactly what he was going for.

“Can you stop doing that?” Kenma scolds, and Kuroo does not miss the way his hands shake, scrunched up and losing colour with their grip on the window frame.

Every inch of Kuroo’s body is screaming at him to fix his mistake already, and his face breaks out into a brilliant smile despite himself. “Sorry, Kozume.” He tries.

Something unreadable flashes across Kenma’s expression, gone as fast as it came, and his voice is infinitely softer when he speaks again. “Don’t…call me that, please.”

“Kozume?” Kuroo asks, tilting his head and taking a step closer to the window above him. The snow underneath his boot crunches loudly as he walks and Kenma immediately recoils further into his room with the sound.

Kuroo stills himself instantly.

There is a moment of silence, filled up by nothing but the howling of the cold air around them, and Kuroo watches Kenma’s mouth contort just slightly before he leans back into the window space to peer down at him.

He looks angry for a moment, but it is difficult to tell where the emotion is directed - or if it is directed at Kuroo at all - and so he holds his tongue instead.

“Just….Kenma.” He murmurs, anger deflating as he muffles his words against his shoulder. “Just Kenma is fine.”

“Okay,” Kuroo’s smiles, refusing to miss even a single beat. “Nice to meet you again, _Just Kenma_. I’m Tetsuro, but you can just call me Tetsu if ya’ want, all my friends do.”

It is a laugh that Kuroo hopes to coax out of Kenma’s lungs with his joke, but the only thing he gets in response is another annoyed furrow of his eyebrows. His smile shrinks a little at the motion.

“I’m not calling you that.” He deadpans.

“ _Hah_?” Kuroo blanches. “Why not?”

The last thing he was expecting from this nervous boy was so much _sass_.

“We’re…not friends.”

Kuroo’s smile slips off his face completely. He allows himself one moment of conflicted concentration before he is jamming his boot back into the thick of the snow around him and striding over to stand directly beneath Kenma’s windowsill.

This time, he does not stop. Not even when Kenma’s eyes grow impossibly wide.

Kuroo angles his head back, meeting the fear in Kenma’s eyes with nothing but confidence and challenge, and throws his arms out with declaration. “We’re going to be.” He decides.

He expects to see more annoyance grace the pallet of Kenma’s face, he is not surprised for the sinking feeling of his stomach when he sees only sadness.

“You don’t want to be my friend.” He says.

“ _I do_.”

Even from the distance, Kuroo can make out the uneven bob of Kenma’s throat as he swallows. “Why would you…want to be my friend?” He asks, and his eyes become increasingly interested in everywhere that is not Kuroo’s face.

He had heard of heartbreak once, an evening spent curled up on the couch with his mother watching another of her favourite romcom movies when a beautiful blonde actress had spat out the word through tears into her lovers face, but when he watches the fall of Kenma’s face above him he knows that he could have never been prepared for what it truly feels like.

His entire chest feels like it’s crumbling right underneath him with just the single expression.

“Why not?” He offers, his voice wavering with every syllable, and he feels increasingly better the moment Kenma focuses his gaze back onto his face with interest.

“ _Why not_?” Kenma echoes in disbelief.

Kuroo shrugs his shoulders once, feigning nonchalance. “Yeah, why not? I like you, and I want to be your friend.”

“You don’t know-“ Kenma begins, but then he is cutting himself off just as quick.

Kuroo does not miss the intention of his words. _You don’t know me_.

He doesn’t – but god does he ever want to.

“I can’t.” Kenma murmurs, tearing his gaze away from Kuroo’s face all over again, efficiently building up all of his walls like he had never knocked any of them down to begin with.

There is a beginning of desperation that starts to stir within Kuroo, and he does not think twice about his words before he is opening his mouth. “Is it your mom?” He asks.

Kenma blinks. “My…mom?”

“Does she…does she not let you?”

This time, when a spark of anger flickers across Kenma’s face again, Kuroo knows it is directed solely at him. “It’s not like that.” He barks.

It sounds too defensive, too rehearsed, and Kuroo is not willing to believe it even for a second.

He pushes forward. “Does she-“

“ _It’s not like that_.” Kenma barks again, his voice louder than Kuroo has ever heard it, and the sound alone makes all of his thought process come to a grinding halt inside his head.

It is a momentary anger, burnt out as quickly as it ignited, and Kenma’s eyebrows dip down into concern just as quickly as his voice does. “It’s…it’s not like that.” He tries again. “I know you think the worst, you and your mom both, but _it’s not like that_. She doesn’t hurt me. She works a lot. _It’s my fault that I’m like this_. She’s tired. She wants me to be different.”

Kuroo thinks he catches the smallest glimmer of wetness collecting at the corner of Kenma’s eyes, but as soon as he opens his mouth to apologize the window above him is slamming shut with a vigor that makes him jump.

He is left to blink, helpless, at the barrier between them all over again as the form of Kenma disappears from the window frame completely.

It does not take long for the panic to begin, for him to release his first disbelieving breath into the frosty air in front of him just for a chance at regaining his grip on reality.

He had one chance, and he had completely blown it.

 _“It’s my fault that I’m like this_.”

The sigh that ghosts pasts his lips comes nowhere close to expressing how awful the realization makes him feel. He has nowhere to go now but home, but the sound of a slamming door to his right stalls his thought immediately.

When he turns his head, it is not Kenma who he expects to see.

He is still, incredibly so, frozen in place in front of his doorway and averting his gaze away from Kuroo’s unbelieving eyes. The cold has made a home of him already, has bitten the tip of his nose red and made a shaking mess of his knees. Here, he is so small.

There is no gap of distance between window and lawn for them to be separated by, no pane of glass sheltering his expression from Kuroo’s view. He looks as though he did on the first day Kuroo had seen him – impossibly tiny, impossibly fragile.

Every instinct in Kuroo’s body is pushing him forward, telling him to move to Kenma’s side, to offer up his scarf to shield him from the winds that are surely to shatter him to pieces, but every inch of Kenma’s face is ready to reject his help.

“Look.” He whispers, and Kuroo has to strain to hear it over the buffet of snowfall. “I’m here. I’m outside. _It’s not like that_.”

Kuroo takes his first daunting step forward. Kenma’s fingers twitch slightly.

“Why don’t you come outside?” He asks.

Kenma’s lip becomes a victim to the gnawing of his teeth. “I don’t like it.”

Another step. “Why don’t you go to school?”

“I…start next Spring.”

 _He’s younger than me_ , Kuroo realizes, and he dares to chance another step forward while Kenma’s distracted. “Don’t you get lonely?”

Kenma’s breath gets caught in his throat with his question and becomes a hiccupping mess of a thing. “No.” He answers, far too fast.

Kuroo is so close now, just another step or two forward, and he can see the dawn of realization beginning to bloom on Kenma’s face. He is all shaking limbs and clenching fists and bloody, bitten lips and Kuroo immediately feels irritated that with all school has tried to teach him it has never taught him this.

He does not understand, does not know why this boy is so fearful of the entire world around him. He cannot wrap his head around the fact that he seems to think he is responsible for all of his misery, for the misery of everyone around him.

He makes a promise to himself to learn it all, school or not.

He does not know how to do this, does not know how to walk around Kenma without accidentally stepping on a landmine, and for the first time in his life he realizes that this is not a lesson he can learn by sleeping through all of its lectures.

“I get lonely.” He admits, and the tremor in Kenma’s fingers stills just slightly. “I have a lot of friends, and I have an older sister who visits, and my parents are always good to me, but I get really lonely sometimes.”

“…Why?” Kenma dares.

When Kuroo smiles, he does not think about being charming. He does not think about his gap of missing teeth. He does not think about playing a game.

When he smiles, this time it is only a sad tug of his lips.

“I don’t know.” He confesses, because truly, he doesn’t. There were plenty of people in Kuroo’s life who made him happy, but somehow it never really felt like enough. The age gap between him and his sibling was deafening, his parents had good jobs and had to work hard despite how much they cared for him. His best friend lived too far away to visit every day.

He didn’t know what he treasured most.

“It’s just you and your mom, isn’t it?” He asks, and Kenma nods weakly in response.

Maybe there circumstances were different – but Kuroo couldn’t help but feel as though maybe they, themselves, weren’t so different after all.

“Is it really okay to not know?” Kenma sniffles, rubbing the plush of his sleeve along the underside of his nose. It really was getting cold out.

“Yes.” Kuroo nods, because that he is sure of. “It’s okay to not know why you’re sad. The important thing to know is what makes you happy.”

Kenma gives him a look like he’s gone insane. “Happy?” He echoes.

Kuroo can’t help but notice that he says it like it’s a foreign term. He has to visibly shake away the sinking feeling in his stomach that comes with the realization.

_Happy. Things he likes. Things he loves._

He is instantly reminded of his conversation with Bokuto from months ago.

He does not hesitate when he asks, “What do you like?”

“Like?” Kenma repeats, again, and Kuroo starts to feel as though he’s having a conversation with a mirror. At least it sounds far less like a foreign term coming off his tongue this time.

“What do you like to do?” He tries. “I love volleyball!”

He turns around swiftly, rushing ahead of himself to not lose control over the conversation, and as soon as he spots his abandoned volleyball from earlier he scoops it up in his arms to proudly present to Kenma.

The expression of Kenma’s face, however, is anything sort of interested.

In his excitement, he had moved closer without even meaning to. At this distance, Kuroo can count each individual dark eyelash gracing Kenma’s face, can see the shimmer of snowflakes catching in the web of them, and the realization makes his breath stop short.

Kenma does not even seem mildly afraid.

_He has to keep talking._

“Do you, uh, do you…like volleyball?” He asks.

The expression on Kenma’s face remains incredibly blank as he replies, “I hate sports.”

“ _Hah?_ ” Kuroo nearly squawks. _Hate sports? Was that even possible?_ “Seriously?”

“I don’t…like getting tired.” Kenma admits, an embarrassed pout taking form on his lips as he purposefully angles his face into his shoulder.

Kuroo can’t help the laugh that bubbles up inside of him at the gesture. It is the first time he’s seen Kenma look anything close to ashamed.

The glare that Kenma shoots him in return, however, has the laughter immediately dying on his tongue.

“S-Sorry,” He wheezes, wiping away a tear with the edge of his mitten. “I just – that was so _blunt._ ”

Kenma makes an unimpressed tutting noise.

“Okay, okay.” Kuroo surrenders, waving his hands in front of him. “Do you, uh, maybe at least want to try? It’s really fun! I’ll let you set and everything, that way you don’t even have to move from your spot.”

There is a flash of mild interest in Kenma’s expression before he crosses his arms in defiance and it’s gone just as fast. “Who plays volleyball in the snow, anyway?” He quips.

Kuroo scratches at his head. “Why not?” He shrugs.

When Kenma only gives him a blank stare in return, he can’t help but feel it’s the wrong answer.

“So…” He tries instead, willing away the faint dusting of embarrassment rising on his cheeks. “What do _you_ like?”

“Nothing, really.” Kenma shrugs.

“ _Nothing_?”

Kenma toys with his lip again, the plush of it caught between his teeth for a few moments in hesitation. Kuroo is not sure whether to press on or pull back. He knows for sure that there is something more there.

He decides to wait it out.

“There is one thing, I guess.” Kenma admits.

“What is it?”

The hesitation is back again, ever so apparent in the nervous shift of Kenma’s eyes as he takes a moment of consideration. Kuroo hopes, quietly, that Kenma comes out of it deciding he is worthy of knowing.

When he reaches into his pocket and holds up a flash of silver Kuroo is not quite sure how to react.

 _A PSP_?

“I like to play videogames.” Kenma explains, and as he presses a button on the device the entire thing lights up into a kaleidoscope of colours and music.

“I don’t play videogames.” Kuroo admits sheepishly. “I like to go adventuring outside.”

Kenma stares back at him in the same disbelief that Kuroo knows, surely, he had been reflecting just moments ago.

“Guess we both really don’t understand each other, huh?” He laughs.

“Guess not…” Kenma murmurs, his arm sliding back down to return the device to his pocket with disappointment.

The action makes Kuroo leap forward all at once, jutting into the space between them and nearly knocking heads, and Kenma stills immediately in fear.

“ _Ah_ ,” Kuroo huffs, cursing himself for moving so carelessly in his desperation. “Sorry. I didn’t, uh, I didn’t mean to startle you just…just don’t put that away yet, okay?”

“…Okay.” Kenma whispers, still frozen in place, and Kuroo mentally kicks himself all over again.

“Maybe we could…switch?” Kuroo suggests, and as Kenma gives him a conflicted look he struggles to get the rest of his words out as fast as he possibly can. “Like…try out what the other person likes for a day? That’d be fun, right? We’d be…able to learn about the other person?”

It sounds silly to him the moment it escapes his mouth, but Kuroo truly feels like he is grasping at straws here. He is not strong enough to be met with another blank stare.

To his relief, however, all Kenma does is straighten back up and blink at him with interest. “Okay.” He agrees.

Kuroo is careful not to brush skin when exchanging their items. When it is finished, he releases a breath he didn’t realize he was even holding in the first place.

“Let’s go sit by the tree.” He suggests, turning around and leading the way. He is surprised to see Kenma obediently following his lead when he angles his head backwards to check on him.

The volleyball is clutched hard in his hands, red bitten fingers holding onto it for dear life, and Kuroo can’t help but feel happy at how much of an effort he is making to be so protective and careful over something so grimy and old as his first volleyball.

It means a lot to him, truly, but it means more that Kenma is already willing to go to such lengths to take care of what makes him happy.

When they make their way back to the shared oak tree, Kuroo is the first to collapse into the snow. He is no stranger to the outside world, and it is nothing more than instinct that has him throwing himself willingly onto the cold ground underneath him.

Kenma, as it turns out, is a lot more timid.

He stands, awkwardly and out of place just in front of Kuroo, and even the reassuring pat on the packed snow beside him that Kuroo gives does nothing to change the uncertainty coiling in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Kuroo dares to ask.

Kenma’s eyes trail off to the side as he spins the volleyball slowly in his hands. “What was your family name again?” He asks.

Kuroo blinks, confused, at him in return. “Kuroo?” He offers.

“Okay.” Kenma says, and yet he still does not move.

“Is there something-“ Kuroo begins, but then Kenma is squeezing his eyes shut and wheezing out another question all at once.

“ _Do people really call you Tetsu?”_

He looks so… _genuinely concerned_ , like he has just overstepped all of his boundaries by daring to speak up for once, and it makes Kuroo want to indulge him more than ever. He likes it, this brash confession of speech however small it may really be, and he feels that it is, somehow, progress between the two of them.

“No, not really.” He admits sheepishly, scratching at the back of his head in embarrassment. “My friend Bokuto sometimes. But uh…mostly my…mom.”

There is the dusting of a blush forming on his cheeks, he can already feel it, and this time he is the one to muffle his expression in the expanse of is shoulder.

“Thought so.” Kenma murmurs, and if Kuroo is seeing things straight, he can swear he sees the smallest tug of a smirk at the edges of his mouth.

He is not sure if his answer is satisfactory enough, but it finally has Kenma’s legs moving forward again, and as he awkwardly lowers himself to sit in the snow beside Kuroo, he can’t help but feel happy about the embarrassment if this is where it got him.

There is a recognizable gap left between them on purpose by Kenma, but Kuroo tells himself that that is something that they can work on later.

“I’m going to call you Kuro.” Kenma says, and by the tone of his voice Kuroo realizes that there is absolutely no room for argument.

The PSP springs back into life in his hands as the title for _Monster Hunter_ flashes across the screen.

“Okay.” He agrees, and the beginnings of a smile start to burn at the edges of his mouth with the realization that he has just earned himself a _nickname_.

“ _Stop smiling_.” Kenma grumbles. “Don’t think this means we’re friends now.”

Kuroo can only feel himself smile harder when he repeats, “Okay.”

He is not quite sure what it is, whether it is the promise of a new beginning or the feeling of actually accomplishing what he had promised himself he’d set out to do, but whatever it is as Kuroo sits there freezing and satisfied by Kenma’s side, the daunting thought of finding something to treasure is the last thing on his mind for once.


	2. a shipwreck

It is an April like any other.

There is the gentle stir of a spring breeze ruffling sleepiness away from the lungs of passersby’s, and the dip of sun over mountaintop doing its best to morph the sky into a kaleidoscope of peach and cerulean, but mostly, there is Kuroo.

There is always Kuroo.

He is: Knuckles gripped tight and skin pinching red around the edges, dusky hair a tousled mess, worn out toes of a ( _definitely not uniform_ ) pair of shoes planted firmly in front of Kenma’s doorstep.

When he raises a fist it is only to knock, again and far too enthusiastic, against the fading cobalt paint job that is his front door.

“ _Kenma_!” He whines, letting his forehead fall against the wooden panel with an audible thump. “C’mon, answer the door already, I’ve been waiting forever. My hand is going to fall off if I knock anymore, and I know you can hear me.”

When the door underneath him suddenly gets yanked open, he barely manages to steady himself from toppling right onto his friend in front of him.

His sneaker squeaks in protest at the abrupt movement, his fingers now white-knuckled around the edges of the doorframe in search of support instead of busy making the form of a fist, and Kenma stares up at him with an expression that is easily both parts incredibly bored and increasingly annoyed.

“Kenma,” He says again, softer, and a threat of a blooming smile tugs at the edges of his mouth.

If it were anyone else, the dip of Kenma’s eyebrows and the grimace of his lip would’ve been a warning sign, but Kuroo knows better. To Kuroo, it is only a mask he has long learned to see behind.

“I heard you the first time.” Kenma mumbles, his voice taking on a mask of its own with the way the words sound so apathetic rolling off his tongue, and the threat of a smile tugging at Kuroo’s lips breaks the surface.

This mask, too, he has come to learn too well.

When Kenma slams the door shut behind him and shoulders past Kuroo, he does not even hesitate for a second to follow him. His shoulders are rigid from behind, hidden beneath the gray cotton of their matching school vests and far too acquainted in their locked up form, and as Kuroo steps into synch beside him he does not miss the way they immediately relax.

His act of annoyance is nothing to Kuroo, not when he knows he spends every minute shouldering past him waiting for him to catch up.

They are silent as they walk, comfortable to listen to nothing but the quiet dance of spring leaves disturbed from their slumber, and it is not until they reach the subway and board the morning train that Kuroo decides to speak up.

They are early enough along the line to get a seat – back of the cart, closest to the exit, just the way Kenma likes – and there is nothing but a blur of gray that flashes by the windows as they crawl through the underground.

“If you were going to be so annoyed by it, you should’ve answered when I knocked the first time.” Kuroo teases, stretching a lanky leg out into the empty aisle while he still has the time to do so.

Kenma blinks at him for a moment, a few minutes of registration before he is tuned back into the real world and remembering where their conversation had left off, and lazily jabs the d-pad on his 3DS. “I don’t understand why you’re so enthusiastic today.” He admits.

The telltale sound of an eevee sounds out from Kenma’s game, and a shaggy curtain of black hair falls into his face and covers his expression as he leans closer to catch it.

He is right, technically. It is not as though Kuroo is not enthusiastic – excess, he had learned young, was surely a part of his nature – but today even he had to admit that he was pushing it.

Getting Kenma out of his house, even when he did have responsibilities to attend to, was always a deal and a half. Having to knock until his knuckles bruised was not something that was new to Kuroo. The vigor that he had put into it this morning, however, surely was.

It wasn’t as though he didn’t have reason, though. He had damn good reason.

When Kuroo shrugs, it is only for show. He knows by now that his attempt at nonchalance is not getting past Kenma. “Excuse me, but there was just no way I was going to miss out on my _best friend’s first day of highschool_.”

“It’s not that big of a deal.” Kenma huffs.

Kuroo leans back to take a curious peak out the window behind him. Still nothing but concrete and darkness. “Sure it is,” He argues. “I still remember my first day.”

When the only responses he gets is silence, Kuroo peers back over at his counterpart beside him in curiosity and finds him still shielded by a dark mass of hair. His fingers, however, have gone considerably still upon their resting place. Kuroo watches a captured eevee spin endlessly on the screen in front of them.

His head is a sudden mess of condolences, a mantra of:

 _Don’t be nervous_.

_It’s a good memory._

_It’s okay._

_I’m here if you need me to be._

But the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a useless breath. When his phone charms in the confines of his pocket, he feels bad at the relief that floods his veins. It is only a distraction, a mere moment to collect his thoughts as his eyes roam across the text littering the screen, but the words turn out to be exactly what he needs.

He gives a soft elbow to Kenma’s side and hopes, silently, that he does not pick up on the way his voice cracks around his words when he says, “Hey.”

When Kenma makes a nonsensible listening noise in the back of his throat, he figures it is as much of an answer as he is going to get.

“Just got a text from ‘Bo,” He murmurs, waving his phone screen back and forth in front of him for emphasis. “He told me to wish you good luck today on his behalf.”

Kenma’s shoulders hike up to his ears. “Tell him thanks.” He murmurs, more to his shoulder than to Kuroo, and the way his ears burn red beneath his hair makes Kuroo let go of a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.

To the outside eye it is odd, the little friendship that the three of them have created. They do not look as though they should be a match, a connection that strikes a spark, but somehow they manage to. Somehow amongst Bokuto’s enthusiasm and Kuroo’s determination and Kenma’s patience they just manage to be whole.

It is something that, initially, unnerved Kuroo. The prospect of his two best friend’s not getting along was enough to keep him up at night – but in the end, all of the worry had turned out to be a waste of time. Bokuto had met Kenma, took a single step over every single boundary and wall he had in place, and Kenma could do nothing but accept it.

As it turned out, he was not as reluctant to do so as some would’ve thought.

Friendship had always been easy for Kuroo, for Bokuto, for a lot of classmates their age – but Kenma had always viewed it as an obstacle that seemed near impossible to scale.

Kuroo knew that their friend group meant a lot to him. That Bokuto’s encouragement meant a lot to him. That Kuroo, in general, meant a lot to him – but it did not stop him from worrying. It did not stop him from wondering if he was capable of fixing everything that he possibly could for Kenma, from wondering if there was any other way he could lighten the load that was Kenma’s worries.

Sometimes he forgot what he had already given him – sometimes, even, he forgot what Kenma had given him in return.

It was a dangerous thing, forgetting.

Dangerous, more so even, to get caught up in one’s own head. When Kuroo finally registers the halt of the train underneath him and the view of grass and tree outside that means arrival, Kenma is already tugging impatiently on the fabric of his sleeve.

Kuroo watches the plush of his mouth move, lips pink and bitten beneath a flash of teeth and without a doubt in the midst of a _c’mon_ or _hurry up_ , but he can’t bring himself to move. It is the first good look he’s gotten at Kenma’s face all day, the first standstill moment of seeing his features without the obstruction of safety-blanket hair, and it is the first realization he has that they have both grown so much.

He is still so much of himself that he was nearly ten years ago, still made up of fluttering dark eyelashes and golden eyes and a twisted mouth, but there is something in his expression that is so much more knowing. There is something in the nervous shake of his fingers that has somehow become more confident in all their fear of the unknown.

When he finally decides to listen, finally lifts himself up from the comfort of his train seat to hover over Kenma, it is only to pull him forward into a bone-crushing hug.

Kenma quiets, immediately, like Kuroo has pushed a button that’s sole purpose is to halt all of his functions, and lets out a quiet puff of breath against Kuroo’s chest. His chest is a mess the minute he does, heartbeat impossibly loud and ringing even in his own ears, but he cannot bring himself to understand why.

When the train doors threaten to close again and both he and Kenma are forced to disentangle from each other to rush through them, he decides to pin it down to nerves alone.

“Kenma,” He rasps, out of breath and tailing his heels towards the school gate. He is not sure what is blooming on the tip of his tongue, not sure if he wants to cram explanation or apology up in his throat, but the fast pace of Kenma’s stride tells him that he should surely be saying something.

Kenma stalls in front of him much to Kuroo’s own surprise, and the sun dyes his hair an inky purple. When he turns to look at him, it is with a mask that Kuroo is not familiar with, has no idea how to even begin to decode.

It was only a hug. Kuroo does not understand why, for some reason, the thing he had done a million times throughout their childhood suddenly feels like something he should be apologizing for. He had earned this, had taken his time to gain the privilege of touching Kenma without watching his hands shake with the prospect of it. He knows that it is not something that he is afraid of anymore – not when it is Kuroo.

The guilt falls only on him – only the hammering of his heartbeat that he still can’t seem to quell. He cannot read this mask, but it is not a mask asking for his apology.

“C’mon,” Kenma mumbles, and Kuroo does not miss the way the mask cracks around the edges, the way the gold of his eyes soften as he stares at Kuroo’s panicking form.  “Let’s go, we’re going to be late.”

When Kuroo’s feet move, it feels only like muscle memory. He does not remember giving the command, let alone following it enough to reach Kenma’s side – but he does.

He does, and pads, silently, towards the entrance without trying to think about the softness coiling around Kenma’s expression.

“Your hair looks awful, by the way.” Kenma says quietly, and this time it is Kuroo who is left to blink wildly at him, torn from the confines of his own meddling head. “Are you ever going to give it a break and stop sleeping like a dead man?”

It is an insult that has no bite, a quip that has no venom when it’s coming from Kenma, and the telltale sign of a quiet smirk tugging at the edges of his lips confirms exactly that.

The image alone makes Kuroo feel significantly lighter.

“Shut up.” He grumbles, and when he throws an arm around Kenma’s shoulders to jokingly jostle him into the building, he is happy to hear his heartbeat remain perfectly silent.

* * *

 

High school is a familiar world to Kuroo. Like every other obstacle, he had managed to scale it, instantly, with amazing grace. When he had told Kenma he still remembered his first day he had meant it. It was a day that was pleasant enough to earn its permanence.

He had made friends easily, because Kuroo always made friends easily, and from there on out it was him watching every other piece fall into place. A position on the volleyball team, a homeroom teacher who found his antics entertaining instead of frustrating, and a perfect score on every test placed in front of him. A girlfriend, even, and his first real kiss since junior high school was something that practically fell into his hands.

For Kenma, it was not so easy.

Kuroo is not surprised when he finds himself nearly having to break down the door to his house just to have a chance at convincing him to go every day.

 _Take care of him_ is what his mother had told him all those years ago, but he didn’t realize all that it truly meant at the time.

On a summer afternoon when the only greeting he gets from his insistent door knocking is a tired plea to quiet down from Kenma’s mother and a confusion about his whereabouts, the realization only sets in deeper.

His hands want to reach for his phone, desperate to find some sort of way to connect, but they go limp as he realizes that even if he tried it would not earn him a response.

There is only one place Kenma is bound to be, only one spot he would choose when he is not holed up in his room and hunched in front of a flickering television screen, and Kuroo’s feet carry him there wordlessly.

It is a pair of stone steps, a public fountain that has long since stopped its dance, and a covering of thick forest trees that promise to attract no one.

It is a beautiful spot, really. A treasure that has long since lost its value, that has been covered by the growth of weed between the cracks in the concrete and the scatter of decaying leaves. Nobody takes the time to visit it now, too turned off by its aging and rusting artifacts and its crumbling steps, but Kuroo can see well enough why Kenma is so fond of it.

It is beautiful, in its own quiet and elusive kind of way, and if you take the time to truly appreciate it there is a startling amount to admire in the delicate craft of its stone and the blossoming of its foliage.

It reminds him of Kenma, in a way.

The resemblance would explain why he looks so natural here, anyhow.

When he arrives, shoulders past the prickling bushes and the beginning of cobweb, he is relieved to find Kenma exactly where he wanted him to be, hunched up and quiet among the wreckage.

He does not speak, merely takes his time to come stand by his side a deliberate few steps away. Kenma’s shoulders lock up at the noise of an intruder.

“Go away.” He murmurs, words suffocated against his knee, and Kuroo roots his feet in place.

He does not ask if he is okay. He knows that he is anything but.

A faded sign squeaks loudly in the distance, disturbed by a too-warm breeze, and Kenma’s shoulders slowly uncoil.

“You didn’t show up to practice.” Kuroo says. He knows that his words are a ticking time bomb.

“I didn’t want to.”

The wind tousles a lock of dark hair at the back of Kenma’s neck. Kuroo lets his eyes close in frustration.

“I’m surprised you even noticed.” Kenma whispers, and Kuroo can hear the bomb explode.

It is long overdue.

“I’m sorry.” Kuroo apologies, because it is all he can do.

Their first year of separation had been hard. The jump to high school, alone and without Kenma at his side, had been an unwanted change. Kenma was stuck by himself finishing his time in middle school and Kuroo was stuck in a world that, although he managed to maneuver into quickly, he had no clue about.

He had made a place here, had made friends and met a girl and learned all of the rules of the game. Incorporating Kenma into all of that proved to be incredibly difficult.

His friends turned up their noses and his girlfriend fought for his attention and his grades demanded the most and somehow the most important thing to him had gotten left behind. He did not know how to fix that. He did not know how to protect Kenma when deep inside he was so scared of the rejection that came alongside it.

Kenma was a walk to the station, a subway ride in the evening, every minute of his after school afternoon and hazy weekend – but he wanted him to be more. He did not want to have to watch him eat his lunch afar in favor of indulging his girlfriend, he did not want to be holed up in a classroom as he watched Kenma skitter, head down and books gripped impossibly tight in his grasp, into his next class. He did not want to pander to his entire volleyball team while Kenma set ball after ball to nothing but an empty wall.

“I’m sorry.” He repeats again. He does not have the guts to say: _I am a coward._

When Kenma finally looks at him, it is the quiet understanding in his eyes that breaks his heart. It is the acceptance that he is the problem that has Kuroo wanting to scream in frustration.

 _“It’s my fault I’m like this”_ is what he had said, all those years ago freezing in the distance between them. It is not a phrase that Kuroo ever wanted to hear directed towards him, but it is exactly the one he sees mimicked in the sad expression of Kenma’s face.

“I’m going to quit.” Kenma confesses.

Kuroo takes a cautious step down a stair. The defensive mask that graces Kenma’s face almost makes him wish he didn’t.

“You can’t do that, Kenma.” He says anyway.

Kenma hugs his feet to his chest, an animal putting up every guard it has, and Kuroo watches him shrink impossibly smaller. “Sure I can.” He argues. “They don’t need me anyway.”

 _I need you,_ thinks Kuroo.

“They don’t matter.” He says instead.

Kenma’s eyes shift, unbelieving, away from him to focus on a slab of cobble.  “I’m the one who doesn’t matter.”

“ _Kenma_ ,” Kuroo pleads, but Kenma remains rigid in place.

They had built this - this passion, this sport, this connection that solidified their entire relationship. Kuroo was not ready to see him give up on it so easily. A dirty volleyball in the middle of the snow was what had broken the barrier between Kuroo and a shivering and scared young boy in front of him. It had become sweat and bruised knees and red raw wrists and he was not ready to see all of his dedication - all of _their_ dedication - thrown away.

Kenma was so talented, so immensely in tune with his body for once when he was playing. Kuroo could not see him lose that, could not see so much potential die out like a flickering candle flame.

“If your mind is really made up, I can’t stop you.” He sighs. “But I just want you to realize what you’re giving up. If…if everyone quit the minute things got hard, nobody would ever get anywhere. I know you, Kenma, and I know that you can get through this. Please don’t let a couple of guys with nothing better to do than pick on someone make you believe you’re not worth it, because you are. You always were.”

It is a lot, a single breath that turns into a larger confession than he believed he was capable of, but he is thankful he has said it the second it is done rolling off his tongue.

He cannot change Kenma’s mind, he knows well of his stubbornness, but he can make him realize what his decision means. He can, at least, make him realize that he will continue to be a support for him even when everyone else is only aiming to tear him down.

It is a tantalizing drag of time before Kenma decides to break the silence.

“Okay.” He says, a simple answer to such a large confession, but it is enough to make him rise to his feet again and turn to face Kuroo directly. “I’ll think about it.”

It is not a yes, nowhere close, but it is enough. Enough that it gives Kuroo the courage to come to finally stand by Kenma’s side. When he lifts a hand to ruffle his hair affectionately, he does not miss the way his hands shake. He is not the only one who is afraid, who has grown accustomed to being nervous.

Kenma may be afraid of the world, but Kuroo has always been petrified of what the world is capable of doing to Kenma. It is not a fear that ever seems to be quelled. It is not something that he is okay with being out of his control.

It is a gentle caress, an encouragement in the form of affection that Kuroo only lets himself indulge in for a minute, but as he pulls away and disentangles his fingers from the mass of Kenma’s windswept hair, he is happy to recognize the total lack of resistant that comes with the display.

“Please don’t give up.” He says, softly, and Kenma wraps his fingers cautiously around the edge of Kuroo’s wrist.

It is soft for a moment, as soft as the words that Kuroo has forced up his throat, but then Kenma is tightening his grip like it is a lifeline and leading Kuroo down the stairs and out of the thick of forest.

His touch is a confession of his own, the words that Kuroo knows Kenma won’t ever let form on his lips, but it is enough. It is enough when Kuroo has spent years learning this quiet language of his.

It says:

_Thank you_

And for Kuroo, that’s a promise.

* * *

 

The thing with promises, as it turns out, is that they are a two way street. It is not Kuroo who expects to be the one to be breaking any.

But he does.

It starts with a pride that blooms deep in his chest when he spots the silhouette of Kenma in the gym doorway the next morning. It is early practice, the sun just breaking its way past the horizon, and if the bags under his eyes and the yawn stretching around his mouth say anything, they are all words that are aimed at Kuroo.

Kuroo knows that he wants him to think that he is here for him alone, that he is trying to fulfill an age old promise just between the two of them, but with the way his eyes fill with interest as one of their team mates jumps to spike a ball across the court, it is clear that it is much more than that.

At the beginning, it _was_ nothing more than a promise. Kuroo would not be surprised if Kenma gave in all those years ago just to get him to stop talking – but somewhere, along the way, it had become so much more than that. Sports were not Kenma’s thing, he did not get genuinely excited about being on the court, but there was still a reason that he kept returning that could not just fall on Kuroo’s feelings alone. He played volleyball the same way he played a videogame – always strategizing, always analyzing. The gym was an entire battleground for him to navigate, and he shined here.

Kuroo knew that he found some enjoyment in that, however small.

He only wishes that he had the time to see that enjoyment for all that it was. Time always seemed to be his enemy, even now.

He wants nothing more than to drop everything he is doing and go meet his silhouette of a best friend in the doorway, but his responsibilities weigh down on him so heavy he is unable to even think about taking a step towards him. There is another first year talking loud in his ear about techniques, a third year eyeing him expectantly from across the court, and every second is an inner battle raging inside of Kuroo’s chest.

He wants to help everyone, he wants to offer as much as he can to everyone who needs it, but every part of his heart is pulling him towards the image of Kenma ducking his head and striding past their taunting teammates to aim a ball at another empty wall.

It is not that Kenma isn’t strong. Kuroo knows that he is.

It is the fact that Kenma would not even think to ask for help even if he needed it that makes Kuroo’s gut turn uncomfortably. He wants to be by his side, always, always offering a solid form of support even when Kenma is not in need of it – but he cannot do that when such a big divide is forming between the two of them.

Kuroo had wanted the years to make them stronger, to solidify the relationship that they had crafted in the snow all of those years ago. He did not want it to pull them apart.

He sees the snickers that his teammates direct at Kenma whenever he skitters past them and it never fails to start a fire in his chest – but that does not mean he knows how to maneuver the flames. He does not know how to stand up for Kenma without making him seem weak, without making him come across as a person in need of constant protection. For Kenma, Kuroo knows that that would be worse than even the bullying.

He does not know how to say the words he wants to say, to stride over and scare every single one of his teammates until they can’t even muster up the courage to think about taunting Kenma, and he does not know how he would ever be able to to begin with when he is under the watchful eye of so many other people who demand his attention.

It is exhausting.

He is left watching all over again, left to feeling guilt rise up inside of him for begging Kenma to keep a promise that’s whole purpose was to keep them together when he is the one making the divide.

When Kenma enters the gym that morning it is a statement. It is a quiet reminder of his patience, of his loyalty, of the promise that he will wait as long as he needs to as long as Kuroo will come back in the end.

It is the type of silent confession that Kenma does best.

But Kuroo can only feel guilty at the disappointment coiling in Kenma's expression that comes with it.

* * *

 

The divide continues for months, growing out of even Kuroo’s control and becoming a living, breathing, thing of its own, and he finally cracks.

He can’t stop thinking about Kenma. It is not unusual for his mind to fall towards thoughts of his best friend when he is left on his own, but lately, it has become so much more than that.

He can’t feign the nonchalance anymore.

He can’t keep going from one world to another, can’t keep living the double life that is his so called friends and neatly crafted smile at school. He wants nothing more than his entire life to be all genuine sleepy smiles and late nights with Kenma and laughing at a mass incoming of texts from Bokuto, halfway across the city and screaming about a beautiful new setter on his volleyball team.

These are the things that he has chosen, the things that he holds closest because they were few of the things to not just fall into his lap willingly. It is the things that he has worked his entire life for, that make him smile without worrying about it having to look right that he wants to hold onto forever.

It takes him far too long to realize that nothing else matters in comparison.

It is the party that finally makes him lose all composure.

Parties, in themselves, are not new to Kuroo. When he had successfully scaled the mountain that was high school, they were an added benefit that came with it. He was invited often and expected to show up always.

As good as a time as they promised to be, Kuroo couldn’t ever help but feel as though he was an outsider looking in when he was actually in the midst of it. It was not a place that he belonged even if his good hearted jokes and his crafty smiles screamed that they were created for nowhere else.

Faking it only remains to be easy until the moment he is really forced to look it in the eye.

The eye, as it turns out, happens to be a set of misty hazel ones staring up at him in disbelief.

“ _You’re what_?” His girlfriend squeaks out, and Kuroo feels his chest clench uncomfortably as a stray tear escapes and leaves a wet streak down the contour of her cheek. He does not lift his hand to wipe it away. His fingers do not even twitch with the want to.

“Ayaka…” He murmurs, her name not quite fitting right in his mouth, but her face immediately dips down into anger before he is able to get anymore out.

“ _Don’t call me that right now, you’re unbelievable_!” She snaps, bringing her sleeve to wipe angrily at the wetness collecting on her cheeks. The pink fabric becomes a mess of makeup and tears.

Kuroo’s eyes close in frustration as a sigh billows out of him.

He had waited too long to do this, and now it was a bigger mess than it ever needed to be. He was tired of feeling guilty for continuing this, but the guilt that filled him with the knowledge that the tears cascading down her beautiful cheeks were because of him was somehow so much worse.

She had done nothing wrong, and that was the hardest part. That was what Kuroo couldn’t find the right words for to explain properly. This whole thing was entirely on him. It was entirely _his_ fault.

When they had first begun dating near the end of his first year, Ayaka had been everything that he thought he ever wanted in a girlfriend. She was confident and beautiful and always laughing, he couldn’t have asked for anything better.

But none of it ever really felt right.

His hands did not shake when he touched her and his heart did not stammer when she turned a corner. He felt like there should definitely be more there than there was.

It wasn’t fair to him, but it especially wasn’t fair to her. He wanted her to be loved endlessly and wholeheartedly. He couldn't be the one to give it to her, and he was tired of pretending that he could.

“I’m…breaking up with you.” He repeats quietly, a heavy weight of shame resting on his shoulders, and he is suddenly thankful for the loud chaos that is the party behind them for drowning out the sad hiccup that comes pouring out of her mouth with the words.

He feels like he should be doing something, should be offering some kind of comfort, but in the end he knows that it would all be useless. He cannot fix the problem when he is the problem.

“I’m sorry.” He confesses, trying his best to hide the way his voice trembles around the edges, but the only thing he gets in response is the angry expression of his now ex-girlfriend and a door slammed straight in his face.

He had always liked her fiery spirit, but he had never expected to see it like this.

When he finally lets a breath go, it is a cloud of misty white relief into the cold air.

He had not expected to do this tonight. Not here, not in the midst of a raging house party. He had a conscience, after all. Doing it in such a public place was no better than sending a breakup text, but he had no other choice.

He had been considering it for weeks, watching the divide between him and Kenma grow, watching Ayaka and his friends shake their heads disapprovingly at the sight of his best friend, and he just couldn’t do it anymore.

He couldn’t keep kissing a girl who didn’t care about the most precious person to him in the entire world. He couldn’t keep laughing with friends who got a kick out of his shaking hands.

When he had found them all in the kitchen, huddled close and criticizing Kuroo for all of his choices, he knew that he had done enough waiting. He could not forgive them for their words.

It only gets worse when one of his friends peeks his head out the doorway to shout something at Kuroo about Ayaka. He is too far away from the house to hear all of it and far too concentrated on blocking it out anyway, but he does not miss its intention.

He does not miss the chorus of laughter, the bark of angry words directed for her – something petty about appearance and sex appeal – but worst of all he does not miss the _congratulation_ that they are directing at him.

It sparks something angry inside of him, festering and hot, and when he does not respond and the door slams shut behind him in response to his silence his chest only sinks lower.

It makes him reach for his phone immediately.

It’s an agonizing moment of silence between each drawn out ring, and Kuroo can feel his fingers losing feeling as they grip tighter, white-knuckled and desperate, around the edges of his cellphone with each passing one.

He doesn’t quite understand the desperation. He had been here a million times, listening to the static of an unanswered phone line, absentmindedly wondering what crevice Kenma had managed to lose his phone in and forgot about this time in the midst of gaming. Missed calls and a plethora of pointless voicemails from Kuroo were not something that Kenma was unfamiliar with – but this time Kuroo wasn’t calling out of boredom. He wasn’t content with leaving a voicemail mindlessly commenting on how nice the weather was while he walked bored and aimlessly around their neighbourhood.

He didn’t know why, exactly, it was different. It was not that he had anything important to say, it was not as if he could manage to explain why his chest felt so unbearably empty. He would not be able to offer Kenma anything more than his usual mindless commentary. Maybe, this time, it was not Kenma who needed a saving grace from his own mind but _him_.

Between his cloudy head, and his vision going blurry around the edges, and the burning feeling in his frostbitten fingers he still couldn’t help but hear the echo of his so called friends words bouncing around his brain.

_It’s kind of a waste, isn’t it? Being friends with someone like him?_

It did not take him long to realize that they had meant _Kenma_.

He knew he should be angry. _He was angry_. At himself and all the words he failed to cram up his throat, at his friends, at the universe for not being able to understand how unfair it was. At _life_ for not being able to see all of the things it had failed to give to his best friend who really deserved the entire world.

No, this was not his usual phone call. This was not his hazy summer afternoon boredom, nothing close to his 3 am sleep-dusted comfort call.

He felt guilty, and lost, and like he should be anywhere else than shivering on the back porch of a house who belonged to a boy who really meant nothing to him at all.

He wanted to be burrowed in sheets that smelt like fresh linen and sun showers, to hear the rhythmic tapping of fingertips against illuminated phone screen as he drifted off to sleep, to roll over and anchor his fingertips against something alive and breathing and _warm._ He wanted to walk back into the hazy atmosphere of the too-bright kitchen and knock each one of those boys between their perfect, privileged, teeth and he wanted to get out of here and go back to a boy called Kenma who he always thought should’ve really been called _home_.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he was the one born with the suave smiles, and the likeable jokes, and the easygoing personality. It wasn’t fair that he was the one that people flocked to, and wanted to befriend, and invited to high school parties on Saturday nights. It wasn’t fair that he was the one getting to experience the entire universe when the universe wouldn’t even take the extra moment to peer around the edges, to cherish the silence, to understand the magnificent that was his best friend. He did not want the entire universe offered up to him on a silver platter if it meant having to leave him behind. He did not want acceptance if it meant giving up on the only thing that ever made him feel truly grounded.

He couldn’t ever make these stupid boys, and these stupid classmates, and this stupid universe understand what they were missing out on. He, himself, could not make everyone around him come to understand and love and cherish Kenma as much as he did – and that was what really broke his heart. That was what really made him feel so alone, goose bumped and hardly sober, in his place in the falling snow.

He is not surprised when his legs begin to move without his permission. They are moments ahead of him, well aware of the things that he is not ready to say out loud, and as he wedges his phone between his shoulder and ear and stuffs his burning fingertips into the confines of his pockets, he is surprised to hear the telltale click of connection as his phone stutters into its last, desperate ring.

“Kuro?” Comes a voice, soft in the cradle of his left ear, and Kuroo feels like he could nearly cry just from hearing his name alone.

His feet are moving faster now, as impatient as his stammering heartbeat, and as he turns back onto the snowy street in front of him and into the dusty yellow halo of illuminated streetlights he does not even spare one glance back towards the place he is so willingly walking away from.

He does not belong there. He never really did, if in the end this is all that it meant.

“You answered,” He croaks, tucking himself further into his jacket to protect his face from the buffering winds. His head suddenly feels really heavy. Was it a left or a right turn at the end of the street? “You never answer.”

“I was…awake.” Kenma says, but Kuroo knows better.

His body automatically turns right.

* * *

 

When he arrives at Kenma’s front door barely an hour later, he does not even need to knock. Kenma greets him the minute his feet arrive in front of his house, door swung wide and welcoming, and Kuroo is surprised to feel the stammer in his chest that he was so desperately searching for before start at just the sight alone.

He has a lot to say, but he has no idea where to start.

Kenma ushers him in quietly, taking extra caution not to wake his mother at such a late hour, and Kuroo is thankful for the wall of warmth that greets him as soon as he steps inside. He is soaked to the bone and freezing with more than just the snow.

Kenma is quiet the entire time they work their way up the stairs and over the cracking floorboards, but the instant he shuts his bedroom door behind him Kuroo is quick to break the silence.

“I broke up with her.” He mumbles, and his voice comes out impossibly strained when he drops his forehead to rest against the soft fabric covering Kenma’s shoulder.

Kenma shifts suddenly with the confession and he knows, surely, that if he had the courage to angle his head upwards, if he had the strength to lift his head off his shoulder, he’d be met with nothing but concerned yellow and a furrowed mouth.

“I broke up with her, and she cried, and I couldn’t even make it better because _I_ was the one who did that. _I_ was the one who made her cry.” He croaks.

“Kuro…”

He was going to lie. He had every intention to, really. He did not want to call Kenma in the middle of the night just for the sake of burdening him with all of his problems. He could have made something up, could have told Kenma that he had changed his mind about the party and never went, that he just needed a place to stay tonight so he didn’t accidentally wake his parents up. He had wanted to make an excuse, but he knew in the end it would’ve been useless. His mind was too hazy to play games and he was tired of playing them anyway. Kenma would have been able to smell the alcohol on his breath from a mile away even if he had tried.

It was pointless. There was nothing but the truth to tell now.

“They congratulated me,” He laughs, strangled and forced, a sound that he can’t bear to make sound genuine in the moment of it all. He does not bother taking the time to explain who _they_ are. He knows that Kenma knows well enough. “They found out that I broke up with her, and they _congratulated_ me. Like it was an accomplishment. Like it deserved _praise_.”

He cannot get it out of his head. He had barely heard any of it, and yet he still can’t seem to wash his mind of it. It is all so unbearably cruel.

He does not mention the words that they had directed at Kenma. They are lies that Kenma does not need to hear.

When tears start to collect at the corners of his eyes, he does not notice them until Kenma’s shoulder is soaked beneath him and he is being maneuvered onto his bed.

This part is easy. This is what he knows. These sheets, these pillows, this mad dance for the both of them to angle themselves to fit comfortably. The scent of nothing but Kenma that envelopes him as soon as he settles in.

When Kenma allows him to bury his face against his chest and wind a shaky hand around his hips it is not their usual position, but it is one that Kuroo cannot be more thankful for in the moment.

He had spent his whole life being scolded for looking after Kenma so closely – he hates that it is so hard for other people to recognize that it is a two way street. They are both as strong as they are weak. They are both people in need of picking up every now and again.

When the tears keep coming, Kuroo loses track of what they are for. He is not sure if he is angry or sad anymore, not sure if he is crying for other people or crying for himself, but whatever the reason it does not stop Kenma from stroking circles into the mess of Kuroo’s hair.

It is a consistent, barely there touch that helps to keep him grounded, and Kuroo knows that it is more telling than any words Kenma would ever be able to come up with.

He does not need words, anyway. Everything he needs is right here.

It is a caress that does not stop even when Kuroo soaks Kenma’s shirt down to his chest and a touch that does not still even when Kuroo winds himself around his small body so tight he is afraid he is going to break him from sheer desperation alone.

It is not until his eyes go raw around the edges that he finds the courage to speak again.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been so awful.” He whispers, a sound still far too loud for the darkness, and he barely even recognizes the sound of his voice forming around the confession.

He knows that an apology is not enough, but at least it is a start.

It is the first thing to make Kenma’s fingers stall.

“Awful is the last thing that you could ever be.” He mumbles, and the only thing that Kuroo can do is hold him tighter.

He feels so heavy with the words. His eyes, his voice, his heart. They are all so weighed down with the forgiveness that he does not feel he deserves.

When he opens his mouth to object, Kenma is quicker to silence him. It is an almost-there kiss pressed to the shell of his ear, a quiet comfort in the dead of the night just between the two of them, and Kuroo is surprised to feel his body immediately fall towards sleep with just the mere touch of it.

They had called Kenma’s friendship a waste, but in the moment, Kuroo knew that the only waste was the fact that they would never be able to understand just how much of a blessing it was to have earned Kenma’s friendship at all.

* * *

 

When Kenma shows up to school the next day with a head of hair dyed golden blonde and Kuroo takes his place by his side wordlessly, it is a statement of its own.

He does not turn his head, not once, not even when his so-called friend’s eyes go wide as he walks right past them in favor of Kenma.

It is not something he has time to waste on anymore.

Not when Kenma is right in front of him.

 

 


	3. and an x marks the spot

“ _I’m telling you_ ,” Bokuto insists, raising a chalky eyebrow and gesturing wildly at both everything and nothing all at once. “You pit an owl and a house cat against each other and the owl is coming out on top. No argument, dude. It isn’t even a competition, have you seen the claws on an owl?”

It is a usual squabble, a ridiculous argument between Kuroo and Bokuto that is nowhere close to new to anyone around them, and the idea of it alone makes a knowing smirk tug at the edges of Kuroo’s lips.

It is a usual squabble in an early fall, walking side by side towards their favorite burger joint with Kenma and the rumored ( _and confirmed_ ) beautiful setter that Kuroo had come to know as Akaashi tailing not far behind them. Somehow to Kuroo it feels like, maybe, the last fall ever.

For the four of them, this is routine. A group hang out at least once a month when they can find the time between part time jobs and studies and volleyball, and the excitement of it has a way of never fading. It is a pattern that never seems to falter: Bokuto and Kuroo caught in at least one playful argument, Kenma and Akaashi shaking their heads in unison, the four of them almost getting kicked out of whatever restaurant they choose on their outing courtesy of Bokuto getting too wound up.

This time, though, this time it is an occasion.

This time, it is a final celebration before graduation.

It is still a weird word to Kuroo – _graduation_. He still feels like it was just yesterday that he and Kenma were entering middle school, that it was just an hour ago that they were struggling through their first few years of high school.

But now, now there is no pretending. Both he and Bokuto were reaching the final stretch of their high school careers, and he did not ever expect it to be so terrifying.

It was not the unexpected that he was afraid of, really. He was not intimidated of what laid ahead.

He was petrified of what he was having to leave behind.

Bokuto chatters in his ear, excitedly and overzealous, and Kuroo presses hard on the line that is beginning to wrinkle between his own eyebrows.

Now is not the time to dwell.

“Are you just going to give up that easy?” Bokuto whines, bringing him back down to earth. “You were so adamant about a house cat’s natural instincts or whatever earlier.”

“A house cat would definitely win.” He murmurs, feigning nonchalance just to get Bokuto riled up again, and holds out the door to the restaurant to allow his friends to collect inside.

Bokuto starts up again, practically screaming about the eyesight of owls and their predatory instincts, and Kuroo tunes it out to let his smirk go full bloom as he takes his place in their favourite booth.

It is an American styled diner, set in the 50’s with the greasy hamburgers, milkshakes and jukebox to match and seemingly out of place for Tokyo, but he especially likes the way it makes Akaashi's lip curl up whenever he has to watch Bokuto use an entire fistful of napkins just to get the grease off his face afterwards and so it's become a favourite.

He has an affinity for getting a rise out of his friends, sue him.

Akaashi and Kenma continue to chat quietly beside him, something about StarCraft that he barely catches, and then Akaashi is raising an annoyed eyebrow and shushing Bokuto just as he yells loud enough to have a splatter of spit land on Kuroo’s cheek.

Akaashi gives him a look, eyes murky grey and telling underneath a thick set of eyelashes, and Kuroo suddenly starts to believe in karma.

 _I told you so,_ it says. Kuroo silently wishes he picked another restaurant as he wipes the spit off his face in a show of disgust.

“Sorry.” Bokuto mumbles, lip jutted forward in an almost-pout, and Kuroo can’t help but think it looks like a whimpering puppy who just got scolded by his favourite person.

Which, he guesses, isn’t really so far from the truth.

Akaashi is a good guy. He can understand Bokuto’s infatuation with him.  He had gotten along with Kenma, anyhow, and fit into their little group like he was always meant to be there and that was enough for Kuroo. He likes the guy, even if his silent understanding and his incredible sense of other people’s emotions did tend to put him on edge every once in a while.

He didn’t particularly like being read when he didn’t even realize that he was sitting on his feelings himself.

“It’s okay, ‘Bo.” He shrugs, waving a hand to emphasize his lack of concern. It is his fault, technically, and he does feel bad for outright ignoring Bokuto even when he was the one who started the argument. It was funnier to see him get riled up than it was to ever actually argue – sometimes he just couldn’t help himself. “We’ll continue the discussion later, ‘kay?” He adds to be free of the guilt, and Bokuto’s face lights up all over again.

So much for the scolded puppy.

When he starts a conversation back up with Bokuto, this time it is considerably tamer. There are words coming out of his own mouth, a string of sentences and vowels and syllables that he knows are making sense, but he feels like his mouth is doing all the work.

His head, as it turns out, is caught up in recognizing how much older Bokuto looks to him now. He has long since lost the chubby cheeks and belly pudge, and now he is nothing but hard muscle and defined jawline where Kuroo is nothing but lanky tallness.

They use to look somewhat a like what they were younger, two brothers that came from different parents with their matching wild dark hair and gold eyes, but now Bokuto looks like nothing more than a distant relative at most.

His eyes are still gold, considerably so, but they are wide and excited where Kuroo’s are relaxed, and the dark of his hair is nothing but streaks beneath a dye job of white. He had both tamed and increased the wildness with the addition of hair gel since their childhood.

 _“It makes me look like a great horned owl.”_ He had said after he got it done freshmen year, and Kuroo had laughed so hard he had to leave the room because he was _absolutely right_.

“Hey ‘Bo.” He hums, trying desperately to reform the connection between mouth and mind, and Bokuto peers up from the menu on cue to stare at him with interest.

“What’s up?” He asks.

The waitress comes over to give them all a round of water, and Kuroo immediately busies himself with toying with the straw. “Are you nervous about graduating?”

Bokuto shrugs. “Not really.” He says, and if it were anyone else, Kuroo wouldn’t have believed them.

He wasn’t sure if he hadn’t taken the time to think about the logistics of it, or if he really had and had merely come to the conclusion that it wasn’t something for him to be afraid of. Considering it was Bokuto, Kuroo figured it was probably the latter.

His eyes trail over to Akaashi for a brief moment, captivating and still in the midst of a quiet conversation with Kenma, and he wonders if Bokuto had considered this aspect of it, too.

“What about Akaashi?” He dares to ask.

Bokuto squints. “Akaashi?” He questions, his name taking on the exciting lilt it always did when it was in the mouth of Bokuto. “What about him?”

“Aren’t you going to miss him?”

Bokuto stares at him with genuine interest. “Of course I am.” He answers, matter of fact. “But it’s only a year, and he promised he’d text me every day, and he’d skype me as much as possible, and if I keep up with my studies he even promised me that he’d set for me a whole bunch when I see him next.”

Now it is Kuroo’s turn to stare.

If anyone was going to panic, he without a doubt figured it would have been Bokuto. Now that he was being the reasonable, level-headed one, he felt like it very possibly _could_ be the end of the world.

He and Bokuto shared something special, they were the best of friends, the very epitome of bromance, but there was something with Akaashi, something with Kenma, that the both of them quietly understood was on an entire different level. Akaashi and Kenma were, to Bokuto and Kuroo, a kind of relationship that bordered on codependency. They just fit. They made _sense_.

So why was Bokuto so willing to wait patiently, so willing to deal with the distance that was about to form between him and Akaashi when Kuroo could barely sleep at night when he merely just _thought_ about leaving Kenma behind?

Thinking about it, even now when they still had time, made Kuroo’s stomach turn uncomfortably.

“ _Geez_ ,” Bokuto groans, pulling him back out of his head once again with an impatient finger pressed between the line of his brows. “Stop being so serious, I feel like we’re six years old again.”

“Sorry.” Kuroo mumbles, genuinely embarrassed as he tries to plaster a confident smirk across his face, but he can tell that even Bokuto isn’t buying it.

Bokuto’s own eyebrows dip in concern, but as he opens his mouth to speak the waitress cuts them off.

“Ready to order?” She smiles, and a unison of nods greet her.

Kenma is the one closest to her, and as Kuroo takes the time to glance his way for the first time since they’ve been seated, he is greeted with a downcast mop of blonde hair and dark roots instead of the monotone face he’s come so well to know.

It is not a good sign, a symbol in the language of Kenma that Kuroo has long since learned, and it is the white-knuckled grip on the edges of the table when the waitress turns to him that has Kuroo desperately grasping for words all at once.

“Actually,” He smiles, the most charming one he can manage, and the waitress immediately turns her attention towards him. She is pretty, he notes quietly, a girl made up of long dark hair and cerulean irises, but it is not what is important to him right now. “Sorry to be a pain and hold everyone up, but I think I’m going to need a few more minutes to decide.”

He can feel both Kenma and Akaashi’s eyes fly to him instantly, two sweltering questions made up of gold and ash that has him swallowing weakly, but he keeps his attention locked on the waitress in front of him as she blinks in understanding.

“Ah,” She wheezes, a faint dusting of a blush gathering high on her cheekbones as Kuroo stretches his smile further. “Of course, no problem, just let me know when you’re ready.”

Kuroo watches her leave just to have an excuse to avoid the pair of eyes boring holes into the sides of his head.

“Oh, _c’mon bro_!” Bokuto whines, shattering the silence in one go and flinging his arms to clutch at his stomach. It lets out a grumbling complaint as if on cue. “I’m starving, here, dude. You always get the same thing, why did ya’ have to change your mind _today of all days_?”

Both Kenma and Akaashi avert their eyes to Bokuto’s antics, and Kuroo silently thanks him.

“Sorry.” He grits through his teeth. “I felt like switching it up.”

When Kenma lets go of a quiet breath beside him, he immediately relaxes with it.

Bokuto instantly goes back to grumbling after the apology, stuffing his nose practically inside the menu and whining to Akaashi about how delicious everything looks, and Kuroo uses the distraction to watch Kenma out of the corner of his eye.

He is calmer now, knuckles back to their usual pale colour and face in plain view as he glances at the menu, and he does not even take a second to pull his eyes away to look at his own.

When the waitress returns, considerably less flustered and ready to take orders, Bokuto’s loud groan of complaint when Kuroo orders his usual anyway nearly makes her drop her notepad.

It is fine from there on out, all of Kenma’s white-knuckled grips replaced by sly smiles and genuine laughing at Bokuto’s expense, and by the time they finish their meals and get the table cleared graduation is the last worry on Kuroo’s mind.

When the bill comes, Bokuto is the first to act, leaping up and practically knocking over the entire table in all of his excitement. “ _Today is on me in celebration_!” He declares, pointing a finger to the skies and crawling over Akaashi to escape the booth.

In hopes of saving his ego, nobody mentions that it is him and Kuroo, really, that should be the ones being treated.

He grabs Kenma by the wrist on the way out, yelling something about needing company, and Kenma trails after him reluctantly.

There is still a grease smear across Bokuto’s left cheek, catching the overhead lights and gleaming, and the irritated expression on Akaashi’s face makes it look like he wants to get up from the table and wipe it off himself.

It is satisfactory until Kuroo realizes that the two of them are alone, and Akaashi turns back to him to give him a pointed look.

He knows this look. It is the same one he felt drilling into the side of his head only minutes ago.

“ _What_?” He asks, and he can’t help but realize that it sounds like a disgruntled kid whining to their mother.

“I didn’t say anything.” Akaashi smiles, but it is anything short of comforting. His eyes crinkle, all knowing around the edges, and Kuroo suddenly feels like he’s in a game of good cop bad cop.

“ _Akaashi_.” He presses.

Kuroo watches Akaashi’s gaze trail over to Bokuto and Kenma’s backside before falling back to Kuroo’s face. No, he didn’t say anything – but Akaashi is always one to say everything without words.

“You got your usual order.” Akaashi says, more of an observation than an explanation, and Kuroo swallows.  _You can’t keep doing this forever_ he means.

Why not? He wants to say, but he already knows the answer.

_You’re not always going to be here._

“Yes.” He says back instead. “I did.” _Please take care of him for me. Please let him take care of you._

When Akaashi leans forward to rest his chin on the underside of his palm, Kuroo can swear he sees his expression soften for just a moment. “I heard your conversation earlier.” He admits, and Kuroo is not surprised. Akaashi is always listening somehow, even to the things that people don’t say.

“Oh?” He says anyway.

Akaashi rises from his seat, delicate hands brushing any leftover crumbs from the wrinkle-free surface of his dress shirt, and gives Kuroo a sincere smile.

It is not much, a simple tug of his mouth, but Kuroo knows that for Akaashi this is as sincere as they come. If it were anything were teeth, it’d be just another mask.

“Bokuto has said all that he needed to say. It does a lot for dwindling the fear.” Akaashi hums, a sentence that burns deep within the confines of Kuroo’s chest, and then he is struggling out of the booth to trail after his departing friends.

 _You’re running out of time_ says the smile on Kenma’s face when he catches up.

* * *

 

When Kuroo was young, he had read a lot. Before friends and before exploring and before the outdoors, the first new adventure he had found had been stashed between the pages of a book. There were entire worlds there, people living their lives through the means of ink and parchment, and Kuroo had been completely fascinated by it.

He had learned a lot of things there and one of them, as it turned out, was that winter always promised the ending of something beautiful.

When he had met Kenma in the snow, he realized that everything he ever read might have been a lie.

It seemed impossible to him that a blanket of snow and a few frozen branches had to mean the end, especially when after it was all said and done the earth grew back even more beautiful than it was before.

Winter, to Kuroo, was the beginning of everything beautiful – but this particular one did not seem to be on his side. Not when, this time, it truly did mean the end.

With the snow came Kuroo’s graduation, and with Kuroo’s graduation came everything that he was not ready to face and had to face anyway.

It is an occasion long since passed, winter melting into spring and awards shuffled into the back of closets and Kuroo silently lying beside Kenma on his bed. It is the both of them staring up into nothingness now.

“I can’t believe I’m leaving tomorrow.” Kuroo whispers, quiet because he’s afraid to say the words any louder, and Kenma shifts slightly beside him.

This way of hanging out has long since become routine, Kenma sprawled one way, Kuroo the other, forced to gaze at each other upside down when they angle their heads to really look at each other. Something about it is tantalizing – always close but never quite close enough.

“You’ll be fine.” He murmurs. “You’ll have Bokuto to keep you company.”

His words are not untrue, but they do little to quell the festering nervousness in Kuroo’s stomach. He is happy that both he and Bokuto decided to head off to the same University, that he will get to continue to play volleyball with him and as a teammate this time, but even the promise of Bokuto’s familiarity is not enough to him.

He wants everything he loves in one place, wants all of his puzzle pieces to remain connected together forever. He’s going to feel all of his missing parts like a hole in his chest.

He is thankful for Kenma’s condolences, for his attempt at comfort, but it is not what he wants right now. He does not understand why it is not enough, but somehow it only makes the hole in his chest grow wider.

He wants an “ _I’ll miss you.”_

A “ _Please come back soon”_

He wants anything other than the blank expression and monotone voice that Kenma is so good at hiding behind. He wishes he could master it himself at times like this. It is a horrible mess of envy and desperation he feels.

He thinks back to a shivering boy on his doorstep and realizes, reluctantly, that if it is not him who takes the first step forward the both of them will be stuck miles apart and frozen forever.

“Kenma,” He says, his voice handled like glass as it glides off his tongue, and when he rolls on his side he is surprised to find Kenma already there.

He is tousled blonde hair and bleeding roots, a set of ever blinking tawny eyes, and everything Kuroo has ever needed in his life in the body of one small person. It stalls the breath in his throat for a moment.

“I know Bokuto is going to be there, but I’m going to miss _you_.” He admits.

For once, Kuroo realizes that the blank expression on Kenma’s face is just shock alone. He opens his mouth – one, twice, three times - in a desperate attempt for words but nothing comes out. Kuroo watches the plush of them move anyway, lost and pink and glimmering under the low light.

If he were to angle it right, if he were to move right now, he could kiss him. Spiderman style, like the kiss scene he had seen with Bokuto the night they had marathoned all of the old American superhero movies they could find, they would be just another two mouths fighting to fit together upside down.

The realization that he wants to do it at all makes all of the blood drain from his face instantly.

 _“Bokuto has said all that he needed to say. It does a lot for dwindling the fear.”_ Akaashi had said. Kuroo mentally curses himself for taking so long to understand what he meant.

It makes sense to him now why his fear is so great. It suddenly makes sense to him why he couldn’t sleep at night when he even so much as thought about packing a suitcase.

But now his bags are packed, and his fear is greater than ever, and he has so much left to say without any idea of how to ever begin saying it.

Kenma is _so much_. So many of his days, his hours, his minutes – so much of his _life_. He is scabby adventuring knees and shaking fingertips grasped in his and a pair of tawny eyes that say everything that he can’t bring his mouth to. He is his greatest find and his most precious friend and the very thing that he has been searching for his entire life. He can only wish now that he had realized it sooner.

He is summer afternoons and winter nights and hazy springs, a warm body coiled in his arms underneath a heap of blankets, the first place his eyes always want to fall, the last place his hands ever want to leave. He is so much, and Kuroo feels guilty for somehow still wanting him to be more.

There is a reason he had never found anything in the girls he dated, had never felt anything spark within him with a pair of their lips against his. There is a reason, and he is barely 5 foot 6 and lying beside him, taking up so little space and somehow taking up all the room in Kuroo’s heart at once.

When he moves, it is not an action he remembers telling his body to do.

It is one moment of captivation, and the next surging forward.

It is the soft cradle of Kenma’s jaw beneath his fingertips, a ghost of surprised breath across his lips, a flash of gold, and then –

_Connection._

It bursts out of him like a memory, the shape of Kenma’s lips beneath his, and when they finally synch Kuroo realizes that there was one, final puzzle piece that he was missing after all.

Kenma does not flinch beneath his touch, the pulse beneath his fingertips does not stir, and Kuroo has an agonizing minute of guilt begin to bloom in his stomach before he feels his lips hesitantly pressing back against his.

It is so small, the quietest, most humble of confessions as their lips barely move, clumsy and inexperienced beneath them – but the smallness of it does nothing to quiet the hammer of heartbeat in Kuroo’s chest.

He cannot wrap his head around the fact that he is here, really here, close enough to smell the smallest hint of lemongrass and mint gracing Kenma’s skin on his childhood bed.

They had laughed here, smiled here, spilt a considerable amount of afternoon snacks into permanence on top of it, but even the threat of a grape coloured popsicle stain could do nothing but add to its significance.

The last thing Kuroo ever imagined was that he would be here, kissing his childhood best friend with the shyness of a middle schooler on his worn out bed – but he is.

He _is_ and it is an incredibly terrifying, axis turning, world shattering, _beautiful_ moment.

It is not a moment that he wants to let end. He wants to stay here forever, feeling the gentle press of Kenma’s lips against his, drowning in his scent and his skin and the quiet thump of heartbeat he can feel in his neck. He feels like he was made for this – like his entire life has been a quest to discover that this is where he belongs perfectly, that this is where all of his pieces blur into one another and become something new.

It is not a moment that he wants to let end, but he is forced to watch it shatter into pieces as the voice of his mother yelling his name sounds from downstairs and he and Kenma pull apart from one another like two incompatible atoms.

Kenma’s eyes are blown wide and unblinking, his hair even more tousled than before, and Kuroo’s fingers burn with the memory of being responsible for it.

There is a quiet sheen covering the surface of his lips, the memory of an almost-kiss, and it is only the fact that he has still yet to reply to his mother that stops Kuroo from leaning back in to make it complete.

“ _Coming_!” He tries to shout back, but his voice gets caught halfway, and the only thing that comes up is a wheeze of a sentence.

When he lifts himself off the bed to head downstairs himself, he makes sure to not glance at the expression still plastered across Kenma’s face.

He can’t bear it, not when he has to leave.

Not when it looks so incredibly close to _love._

* * *

 

Neither of them mention the kiss.

It is not something that _can_ be mentioned – not when the next morning Kuroo has to stand in Kenma’s doorway for the last time and wish him a goodbye, not when he has to pretend, in the midst of a hug, that the wetness pooling at the corner of Kenma’s eyes are not so unlike the ones he refuses to show reflecting in his own.

It was not fair of him to kiss him at all. Not when the next day he had to destroy everything that ever had a chance of blossoming to begin with.

Kenma does not befriend words, so he does not say any. His goodbye is in the way he answers on the first knock, his I miss you spoken loudly in the way he grips the edges of Kuroo’s shirt in a hug so tight he would not be able to move even if he wanted to. Kenma does not do words, but he does affection even less. Any grand shown of it, in itself, speaks volumes.

Which is why it frustrates Kuroo, endlessly, to now be staring at him through nothing but a laptop screen and a weak internet connection. There is no room for affection here.

It has been months, enough for Kuroo to get unpacked and settled into his shared apartment with Bokuto, and yet nowhere near enough for him to build up the courage to tell Kenma he loves him.

He has been saying it for years without knowing it, why is it that now that he is aware of it he is at a loss of how to express it properly?

There is a part of him that still feels guilty for kissing Kenma, that still feels wrong even though the quiet push of lips against his could be mistaken for nothing but reciprocation.

It is the conversation from high school that weighs heavy on him, the image of Kenma folded up on his sofa and whispering in the dark. It was the conversation about love, about dating and relationships and kissing that everyone has that brought up the answer of: _I’m really not interested in that kind of stuff._ It is that answer that makes him worry that he has forced something that he shouldn’t have.

He still does not understand Kenma’s words, but he wants to. God, does he want to.

The sound of Kenma’s WIIU crackles quietly over their Skype call, and Kuroo raises his head from the confines of his science book.

It is late, the numbers on the clock rolling over into early morning, and they have both been quiet for hours. Kuroo in the midst of studying, Kenma’s tongue stuck out in concentrate as he stares down at his gamepad, it has all become such a routine. Kuroo is not sure if he could ever live without it.

It is only when his vision starts to go blurry around the edges, when his hand falters and he ends up highlighting blank space rather than a string of words, that he realizes that maybe he should call it a night.

It is always the hardest part, having to say goodbye. He hates seeing his screen flicker into darkness, having to witness Kenma’s face fade away from his vision. He hates having to turn back to his words on his phone screen or a camera roll of month old photos. All of it seems so terribly insincere in comparison.

“Kenma,” He murmurs, sleep littering his voice, and Kenma’s gaze slides back over to his face on the screen.

He waits.

“How…” Kuroo tries, but all of his words suddenly feel like cotton balls in his mouth. “How are things over there?” He asks.

It is not as though it is a question he hasn’t posed before – he is always concerned about Kenma’s wellbeing – but for some reason, whether it be the hour or the heaviness in his eyes, he feels as though it is his only chance at getting an honest response.

 _Good_ , Kenma had always said. Every time. I’m keeping my grades up, Akaashi just visited last week, the team is going far, Hinata from Karasuno showed me the new spiking technique he's been working on the other day.

It all always felt like needless filler to Kuroo.

Kenma blinks at him in return, the action lagging slightly over the distance, and a sad smile tugs around the edges of his lips as he answers:  “Quiet.”

It is an odd answer, but it is one that Kuroo immediately understands. The game looping in the background of Kenma’s webcam is loud, loud enough to transfer over the speakers, and Bokuto passed out and snoring on the living room couch behind Kuroo is no less in volume, but even so he feels the weight of the word _quiet_ settle in his bones.

It _is_ quiet, impossibly so, even amongst all of the noise. It has been for months.

“Yeah,” He tries to laugh, but the drowsiness in his voice only makes it a crackling mess. “Same here.”

“Go to bed, Kuro.” Kenma hums, and Kuroo’s eyes threaten to fall closed with just his voice alone. It is incredibly relaxing, a sense of comfort and familiarity that he misses so dearly, and he wishes he was hearing it pressed against the shell of his ear instead of over a crackling internet connection.

“Okay.” He agrees.

“ _I mean it.”_

This time, when Kuroo laughs, it is genuine enough to make it up his throat without getting caught along the way. It is something about Kenma’s face, something about his attempt at a serious expression underneath all of his exhaustion that doesn’t quite look right, and Kuroo can’t help but be amused by it.

“I’m going to come see you, for your graduation. I’m going to be there for you.” Kuroo admits, a confession that he has long since spoken, and Kenma gives him another sad smile.

“I know.”

It is not a new confession, practically a replacement for a normal goodbye, and as they both say goodnight and Kuroo’s screen flickers into darkness, the affection in his reflection makes him feel like an embarrassed child again.

It is a promise, a landmark to remind them both of when they’ll be together again, and Kuroo refuses to miss it for the entire world. He plans on reminding Kenma until he gets sick of hearing it – but he hopes, silently, that he never really does.

* * *

 

Unfortunately, for Kuroo, plans are not exactly his strong suit.

It comes in a less than welcome reminder when he awakes to the shrill sound of more than one alarm, and startles himself so bad that he comes crashing onto the wooden floor beneath him.

He can feel the blossoming of a bruise, purple and angry, underneath his shin instantly, but he ignores it in favor of scrambling through his bedsheets in search for his phone. When he finds it, the unwelcomed bright flash of light is nothing in comparison to the sheer panic he feels rising in his chest when his head suddenly makes sense of the flash of numbers across the screen.

The next few moments are a mad dance: a struggle into the closest pair of clothes he can find, two mismatched socks and an inside out shirt to match, a scramble through the doorway and a granola bar shoved down his throat, and then the halting screech of his sock-clad feet as he comes to a standstill in front of a wide eyed Bokuto.

“Whoa,” He says, eyes wide and holding both hands up in surrender, and Kuroo nearly cries with the realization that he has stopped moving. “What’s the big hurry?”

This is not a conversation that he has time for.

“I slept through all of my alarms.” He rushes out, a quick and dirty explanation, and as he tries to shoulder past Bokuto he is pulled back by a strong grip on his shoulder.

“ _Where are you going_?” Bokuto asks, and once again Kuroo feels like he’s losing his mind just from seeing Bokuto be the level-headed one alone. “ _You have class in less than an hour_.”

“Don’t care. Not going.” Kuroo says, shaking his head for emphasis, and this time he successfully manages to shoulder past Bokuto and begin the mad struggle to get his shoes on.

Bokuto follows him, curiosity still plastered across his face, and gives him a weird look. “Did I forget about something important?”

Important is not a good enough word to cover it.

“Kenma’s graduation ceremony is today.” Kuroo wheezes, out of breath and admittedly ashamed for being so, and efficiently jams the rest of his feet into his shoes.

Bokuto’s eyes immediately light up at the information. “What? No way, that’s today? Aw man, I totally wanted to go, too. Please tell him I said congrat-“ He begins, but Kuroo effectively shuts down the thought by yanking open their apartment door with a vigor that has it slamming into the wall behind it.

“It starts in less than an hour,” He wheezes. “And I’m already late. _And I promised I’d be there_.”

Bokuto blinks owlishly at him for a mere second, and then he’s giving him an over enthusiastic slap on the back and practically pushing him out of the door. “Holy shit, dude, then _hurry the hell up and get over there_. I’ll get Akaashi and follow right behind you. Screw classes, your friend only graduates high school once!”

The smile that Bokuto beams his way is so sincere, it actually makes Kuroo feel the slightest bit better. Even if he did already royally fuck up this entire day.

It is a short lived comfort though, because Kuroo only allows himself to indulge in it for a moment before he’s following Bokuto’s advice and forgoing the stairs with a risky jump and roll off the bannister in favor of saving on time.

“ _And fix your hair! It looks awful_!” Bokuto yells behind him, but the minute Kuroo’s feet hit the concrete and start running it is lost to the wind.

It is a phrase he’s come accustomed to hearing, anyway.

* * *

 

There is only one last bullet train departing for the next two hours, his true last chance of possibly ever getting to the school before Kenma leaves completely, and Kuroo sees it start to close its doors the moment he arrives at the station sweaty and out of breath.

His side is cramping, and his legs are screaming at him for not thinking to stretch, but he ignores it all in favor of making one last dash towards it.

The subway is crowded as it usually is and he gives up on apologies halfway through his mad shove through the crowd. He is nothing but elbows and knees and desperation now and he can hardly even feel the annoyed glances at the back of his head, can hardly even hear the angry shouts as he physically forces his way through the crowd.

He is so close, so very close, and as the door becomes nothing more than a tiny crack he visibly shoves himself through its entrance.

It is barely a fit, his leg getting caught halfway through and him having to yank it back in and ignore the painful scrape of metal. He reminds himself that it is better than losing it completely to the side of a tunnel wall.

Even so, though, he can feel the cuts on his ankle beginning to bloom red with blood, and as he tries to take a step forward to sit down and relieve himself of the pain he feels a gaping hole rip in the side of his t-shirt that he didn’t realize had gotten stuck in the door.

He does not want to think about what he looks like right now to everyone else on the train. An out of breath, wheezing boy with a chunk of his shirt missing, a bloody ankle, and a terrifying amount of bedhead. A woman further on down the train takes one look at him and immediately hugs her child closer.

This, as it turns out, is not exactly how Kuroo imagined the whole ordeal to go down.

He had a plan, a carefully structured chain of events, and he had blew them all by staying up too late with his nose in a science book the night before and effectively sleeping through every single one of his alarms except the last one.

He had a nice outfit picked, a specific cologne, a bouquet of flowers to deliver and – oh god, he had forgotten the _flowers_.

The empty space in Kuroo’s hands immediately sends him into a panic.

Not only was he going to show up late and an absolute wreck, but now he was also running the risk of showing up _completely empty handed_.

He really was the world’s worst friend.

It is the threat of failure that has him immediately searching the train cart, head flying left and right in anticipation, until his gaze falls directly onto an old man across from him who is holding a perfectly good bouquet of red roses.

“ _You there_!” He nearly shouts, tripping over his own shoelaces just to get within earshot, and nearly everyone’s eyes within listening range go wide.

The old man blinks up at him, half parts confused and unamused. “Me?” He asks.

Kuroo nods viciously, all out of words and frankly not trusting himself to use anymore. “How badly do you need those flowers?”

The old man holds up the flowers in question and turns them around in his hands. “They are for my wife, but I suppose they could be replaced if necessary.” He decides.

Kuroo scrambles for his wallet instantly, a beat up old thing with a fading Superman logo, and throws every bit of yen he can possibly find into the old man’s hands.

“That should be more than enough, please let me buy the flowers off you.” He wheezes, still struggling just to catch his breath.

When the old man hands them over wordlessly, Kuroo is not sure if it is out of sympathy or fear, but whatever it is he is thankful.

* * *

 

It is a mad rush all over again the second the train doors open, and Kuroo is the first to escape from the crowd, shoving elbows and knees wherever he needs to to maneuver out of it. He knows that he is being rude, just adding another reason for the elder generation to berate his own, but he doesn’t have the time to stop to feel bad about it in the moment. He has somewhere to be that is so much more important than this dirty train station.

He thanks his past self silently for being so into sports, for keeping up such a good exercise regime, as he starts another mad dash towards his old high school.

By this point, he knows that he is late. There is no chance that there is anything left of the ceremony to be seen, but he hopes with all that he can that Kenma might still be there. The flowers he had pawned off the old man on the train are falling to pieces in his anxious grip, but he still figures that they are better than nothing.

He knows that his presence alone will mean a lot, but he also knows that the current state of his presence is not the best that it can be. He haphazardly tries to flatten down a particularly bad cowlick as he runs to no avail.

Kenma had seen worse, anyway.

When he finally rounds the last corner and bursts through the school gates, his eyes decide to give his legs a break by starting a frantic search of their own.

At first there is nothing but snowy ground and building and a new kind of panic begins to stir inside of him, but then his gaze finally locates what he is looking for and falls onto the image of Kenma.

He is completely alone, sitting by himself on a step near their old gymnasiums and staring down at nothing but the pale expanse of his own hands, and Kuroo’s heart slams inside of his chest at the sight.

His roots are impossibly worse than the last time he had seen him, bleeding brown nearly to his ears, and he has the outgrown hair near his neck tied up into a stubby ponytail.

Kuroo is convinced that it is the most beautiful sight he has ever seen.

“ _Kenma!_ ” He screams, as loud as he can so it can be heard from the distance, and Kenma’s head snaps up immediately at the sound of his voice.

His eyes are impossibly wide and unblinking, the tawny colour that Kuroo has come so well to know reflecting bright in the fading sunset, and it is the wetness collecting at the edges of them that has Kuroo racing forward as fast as he possibly can.

Kenma barely has time to stand up before Kuroo is barreling right into him and lifting his feet right up off the ground beneath him. The flowers crumble to the ground with the effort but Kuroo can’t find it in him to care, not when there is a beating heartbeat against his and a pair of arms gripping onto him as hard as he is gripping back. When he starts to spin and he can feel Kenma suffocate a smile into the confines of his shoulder, Kuroo feels like he might just be in heaven after all.

It has been so impossibly long without him.

It is only when he notices the tremor in his own hands start, nervousness and excitement and exhaustion mixing into one deadly concoction in his veins, that he is willing to place Kenma back on the ground.

He does not want to let him go, not yet, but he does not trust himself not to barrel them both over with his happiness. He lets his hand linger on Kenma’s wrist even after he releases him.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” He bursts out. There are so many things he feels like he needs to say and what feels like so little time, but he knows the first thing without a doubt needs to be an apology. “I had a plan, I really did, but I was stupid and I stayed up late studying and I didn’t hear any of my alarms and-“

Kenma cuts him off, quick and efficient, by suffocating a laugh behind his hand.

The sound of it, the slight curve of Kenma’s amused mouth, it is all too much for Kuroo to take. He feels like he is going to pass out. It had been so long since he had seen it in person, he had forgotten how blinding the rare sight of Kenma’s smile really was.

“Its fine, Kuro,” He smiles, quiet and bashful, and Kuroo can’t help but think that it is a look that he’d like to see a lot more. “Thank you for coming in the end.”

It feels so odd to Kuroo to be the one being thanked. He feels as though it should be him thanking Kenma. For what, exactly, he is not sure – but in the moment he feels so incredibly thankful to even be standing by his side. There was no way that he was not going to be here. Late was not ideal, but it was better than never.

Kuroo knew from the beginning that Kenma’s mother was not going to be the one to show up. She was not the kind of woman who was meant to have something as precious as a child in her life to begin with. Kuroo had come to learn that she was not cruel like he had originally thought all of those years ago, but she had her own brand of cruelty that burned just as badly. She did not hurt Kenma, but she did not pay attention to him either. Ignoring, pretending his existence was not important, Kuroo saw how that was so much worse.

It was no wonder that on the first day they had met, Kenma had not wanted to be referred to with his last name. It was not something that he wanted to be a part of. It was not a family he felt a tie to.

Kenma had made his own family with Kuroo, and Kuroo felt like it was the greatest blessing he had ever received in his entire life. If Kenma was something so unimportant that in the eyes of his mother she could afford to throw him away, then for Kuroo Kenma was his greatest treasure.

He wants to kiss him again, to continue what they had started months ago, but he is so afraid of messing things up. He is so afraid of losing the most important thing in his entire life. When his fingers twitch with the wanting, he uses it to pull Kenma into another impossibly tight hug instead.

“Congratulations.” He murmurs, lips tucked against the shell of Kenma’s ear. It is a praise that is meant for Kenma alone, he does not want the winds catching hold of it and giving it to anyone else. “I’m so proud of you.”

It is not what he wants to say, but it is a start.

When he presses the crushed excuse for flowers into Kenma’s hands, it is just a distraction to stop himself from saying what he is not ready to say.

Kenma blinks down at them, bewildered and flustered all at once, and runs a cautious fingertip over a still intact petal. They are still beautiful, even amongst all the abuse that Kuroo has put them through, and it dawns on him suddenly that out of every flower he could have found on that stuffy train he had happened to fall across a pair of red roses.

 _Love and gratitude_.

How sickeningly appropriate that they were saying the things that he could not.

Kenma is silent as he glances down at them and Kuroo is surprised that he is being so meek. He had expected a jab at his ridiculous appearance, a goodhearted criticism of his flower care, but all that he has been greeted with so far is silent appreciation.

He remembers the tears that were collecting at Kenma’s eyes at his arrival and wonders if maybe, if just for a moment, Kenma had thought that Kuroo had finally given up on him, too.

It is that thought alone that has him opening his mouth in a desperate panic.

“Move in with me.” He blurts out, surprised to hear the words himself even though he is the one telling them to roll off his tongue, and Kenma’s eyes go wide as he finally tears his gaze away from his bouquet.

He does not regret saying the words. He has been thinking about them forever.

“I’m sorry.” He rushes out. “I know it’s a lot, and I know you haven’t decided what you want to do for school yet, or where you want to go, but I need you. I don’t care if that sounds pathetic, Kenma, _I need you_. I don’t want to wake up every day this far away from you.”

It is not the confession that he had meant, but it is telling enough.

“Kuro…I-” Kenma murmurs, mouth opening and closing with a loss for words. Kuroo watches the pink plush of lips find nothing, and he can’t help but think about kissing him again. “What about Bokuto?” He finally asks.

Kuroo shakes his head. “You and I both know that Bokuto is going to move in with Akaashi the minute he can.”

Kenma’s mouth twists in thought. Kuroo knows that he knows that it is the truth as well as he does.

“Okay,” He whispers, eyes trailing off to the side, and Kuroo does not miss the faint rising of colour on his cheeks. He does not miss the silent confession of, _I was hoping that you were going to ask._

It makes another smile, wide and genuine, break out on Kuroo’s face instantly.

He is tired of being afraid of what he needs to say.

When he takes a step forward to pull Kenma into another embrace the hammering of a heartbeat he feels in the chest against him is enough to give him all of the courage he needs.

“I love you.” He confesses, soft into the crevice of Kenma’s collarbone, and with the way Kenma’s breath hitches beneath him he knows that he understands exactly what he means.

He is petrified to get a response, unsure if he is even prepared for one, but all it takes is Kenma bunching his fist into the fabric of Kuroo’s ripped shirt and pulling him closer to extinguish all of his fears. His confession is silent, soft in the way that everything Kenma does is, but it is more than enough for Kuroo.

It is a grip that says you are the exception.

It is an action that whispers _I love you, too_.

They stay like that, seeking each other’s warmth as the beginnings of snow start to fall soft all around them, and Kuroo can’t help but realize that all of their beginnings seem to start this way.

Years ago he had met an impossibly small boy shivering in a snowstorm, and now he was whispering an impossibly big confession into his ear in the midst of a snowfall. It was no wonder that everything up until now had felt so wrong to Kuroo. He had always belonged right here.

When the sound of footsteps break the barrier into their little world and Kuroo turns to see Bokuto and Akaashi running towards them, hand and hand and smiling ear to ear, he can’t even bring himself to feel disappointed for being interrupted. He can't even bring himself to regret not kissing Kenma the moment he had felt the want to.

Akaashi gives him a silent look of praise, Bokuto waves at them like an over excited child, and Kuroo realizes that he has all of the time in the world for this.

When they both get close enough to say their congratulations, when Bokuto gets the opportunity to take the flowers from Kenma to inspect them and squints in confusion at the tag, Kuroo does not think that there is any moment in his life that he has been happier than the one that follows.

“Whose Midori-chan?” He asks, eyebrows skyrocketing in confusion, and when Kuroo confesses to panhandling it off an old man on the train, Kenma laughs so hard he falls right into a forming snowbank.

* * *

 

It is barely a few weeks later when Kuroo finds himself setting down the final moving box into their shared apartment.

 _Shared._ It is still such a surreal thing to him.

Bokuto is loud over by the doorway, struggling to get the last of his things out and into his new place while Akaashi trails after him picking up what he drops, and it leaves Kuroo with a tiny moment to reflect.

The final box is, surprisingly, not even something of Kenma’s at all. When he had went back home to visit Kenma, he had made sure to take the time to see his parents too. His mom had been ecstatic with the news, ever the biggest fan of Kenma, and even his Dad had taken the time to hide a smile behind his morning newspaper.

It had been a well needed visit, but it had also been a visit that had ended with his mom aggressively shoving a box full of things into his hands when he left. Unsurprisingly, she had refused to explain, and in the midst of all the chaos that was moving Kuroo had forgotten about it.

That is, until now.

It is the final box, the last piece to unpack, and Kuroo can tell just by looking at it that it is old. The edges of the box are scuffed and fading, and the name _“Tetsu”_ is scribbled across it in what is no doubt his old grade school handwriting.

When he finally opens it, he is not prepared for what he sees.

Generally, it is just a box filled to the brim with his old childhood toys – but the focal point, the very first thing Kuroo sees when he cracks it open, is a fading piece of paper with a huge red 0% on it and a giant, bolded question.

 _“What do you treasure?”_ It asks, taunting and empty, and Kuroo can’t help the laugh that rises up inside of him when he reads the question.

So long ago, it had meant so much to him. He had not thought about it in forever.

It had taken him thirteen years, but he finally had the answer. Who knew that it had been in front of him all along?

It is the first thing he pins to their refrigerator, bold and telling, and this time when Kuroo uncaps a pen between his teeth and presses it to paper, he does not have trouble thinking about what he has to write.

It is one simple word, written as bold as the question itself in Kuroo’s shaky kanji, and as he stands back to admire it he is filled with the strangest sense of accomplishment.

 **'KENMA'** it reads, proud and impossible to miss, and when Kenma himself turns the corner into their kitchen and opens his mouth to object, Kuroo doesn’t even give him the chance before he’s kissing him hard enough to bruise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're looking for more of me, you can find me: [here](http://alcheminx.flavors.me)


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